Gundam SEED: The Solar War
by blind-dead-mcjones
Summary: It has been 4 years since the bloody valentine conflict, despite the outward apperance of peace and prosperity, battles continue to be waged for various reasons, one group however seeks to bring an end to that, they are Celestial Being. SEEDx00 crossover.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

This story is a gundam SEED x Gundam 00 crossover, and takes place when GSD would have, so some of the destiny characters will appear while others won't (like Mwu, he's dead in this folks) oh I also increased the number of orbital elevators from 3 to 4, all or most of everything is explained in the prologue

I don't own gundam SEED, Gundam 00, be it the characters, mobile suits or pretty much anything Gundam related, anyways on with the show: **  
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Gundam SEED: the Solar conflict

Prologue

Year 76 of the Cosmic era, 4 years have passed since the end of the Bloody Valentine War which ended in C.E 72, after many deaths, most notably ace pilot Mwu La Flaga, & through diplomatic discussion a cease-fire between OMNI and ZAFT was eventually brokered, as a result of the discussions, nuclear technology was abandoned all together in any way shape or form, the Atlantic Federation relinquished control of the ORB Union back to its original Government, and the remaining original Gundam type mobile suits were returned to the Earth Alliance.

One of the main tasks which faced all sides was the emplacement of a new power source to replace nuclear power and fossil fuels, in which the PLANTS provided the solution, solar energy, this project, combining ORBs and the PLANTS construction expertise and technology (especially in the area of alternative power sources) with the Earth Alliances vast resources and manpower, was finished in little over a year and a half, to prevent any dispute over ownership of the ring and this new energy source, the 4 pillars, which double as orbital elevators, were divided among the participants of the project.

The PLANTS had control of the elevator located in Australiasia due to its close proximity to the Carpentaria base, the elevator located in central America is operated by the Atlantic Federation, again due to the Panama spaceport being nearby, the third elevator, under the control of the Erusian Alliance was located in east Africa, close to the Victoria base, the final elevator, under the constituency of the ORB Union is located on Onogoro island, also serving as a monument to ORBs defiant last stand against the Earth alliance invasion.

Even with all this progress, there was still seeds of discontent, the Erusian Alliance permanently broke away from the Atlantic Federation, bringing an end to the earth alliance and OMNI, due to disagreements over the Erusians apathetic and indifferent attitude towards the PLANTS, who the Atlantic Federation still considered their enemy, in addition many terrorist attacks were attempted on the elevators themselves, namely from Blue Cosmos who opposed working with Coordinators, and Radicals loyal to the late Patrick Zala who believe that Coordinators should be exterminating the 'Natural scum' not helping them rebuild their lives, even with the Junius Treaty, all factions with the exception of ORB, were secretly amassing weaponry and equipment beyond what is allowed by the treaty.

From the surface it appeared as though the world was at peace, when in reality a zero sum game was played by all sides, so that they could continue their battles for the sake of prestige and prosperity, despite all that has happened, humanity is still yet join as one, being reluctant to let go of old prejudices and grudges.

Wishing to bring and end to this, a private army, known as Celestial being, made itself known to the world on the anniversary of the Junius treaty signing, pledging to eradicate war through force, with the use of their own mobile suits, also known as "Gundams", their appearance would trigger a world revolution, along with events that would not be forgotten for a very long time….


	2. Chapter 2

I don't own Gundam SEED, Gundam 00 or anything Gundam related, apart from those gunpla model kits I do have a few of those, and a couple of armored core kits too, but I digress…

--

chapter 2

April 1, ZAFT proving ground, Gulf of Carpentaria.

All was quiet in the proving ground, as the wind gusted through the city landscape, like all the other training fields it was merely a mockup in order to test new mobile suit designs in particular areas of battle, this case being urban combat, but in typical coordinator fashion the attention to detail was astounding, it almost seemed like a real city block, at one end sat 15 balloons with targets printed on them, being tied to an equal number of gattling guns, their worn blackened barrels dully reflecting the sunlight, at the other side a green mobile suit moved into view, the motion sensors connected to the guns kicked in and they opened fire on the source of movement, the machine took off and sped into the volley of fire, its pilot deftly dodging and weaving through the barrage of shells, letting off several well aimed shots at the balloons, popping a dozen of them.

It came to a stop several paces away from one of the gattling guns, as it opened fire, the suit moved its left arm across, blocking the incoming bullets with a large spiked shield fixed to its left shoulder before launching into the air, it quickly did a 180 and fired off another volley, popping the rest of the balloons, the suit flew off in the direction of some stadium bleachers, where several ZAFT officers and business men were seated, watching the new mobile being put through its paces, and clearly impressed with the results.

"The ZMGF 1000 ZAKU warrior, quite an impressive design" remarked a figure in a business suit, running his hand through his brown hair before gingerly touching the long scar that lined the side of his face, behind him another person approached, blue hair framing his face while his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses.

"What makes you say that?" he casually asked before sitting along side the man he was talking to, staring at the green mobile suit intently as it did some acrobatic maneuvers before coming to a rest on the ground.

"Are you sure its ok for the ORB leaders bodyguard to be here while she is left to speak with the chairman of the PLANTs on her own?" the scarred man asked back, his voice containing a slight hint of amusement.

"Of course it's not ok" the blue haired man shot back, "which is why she is here with the chairman, but still within line of sight" with a nod he gestured to his right, where two people, a blonde woman and a tall figure with long dark hair, were siting, discussing something passively, as if they were friends, the scarred man nodded in understanding.  
"I must say, it's awfully bold of ZAFT to release a new model on the same date as both the Junius treaty and George Glenns birthday." The blue haired man stated.

"That it is, but the GuAIZ R's are getting a bit long in the tooth, some of the ZAFT commanders are getting edgy about it, especially with all the delays which have occurred since their 'New millennium series' project began." The brown haired man paused a bit before changing the subject.

"As for the new suit, they've given the beam rifle its own power source so that when it fires it doesn't drain the suits internal battery, it's that disk shaped thing on top of the weapon, it also carries two additional battery packs in the shield, as well as four grenades docked to the hip armour, plus there's its wizard pack system, so what do you make of it?"

the other guy gave the suit a once over. "The replaceable power source is inventive but the Erusians already did that with their CAT Hyperion series, and judging from what I read about the wizard pack system, it's just a shameless copy of the system which the Strike used." At that he stopped talking, immediately thinking of the trouble caused, as well has the comrades he lost and the friend he nearly killed because of that suit, the blank look on his face was not lost on the other guy, for he too had lost someone close to him cos of the strike, and nearly died himself as well, _what's done is done._ he reminded himself, _no point dwelling on the past. _The blue haired man took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts to the back of head, so he could finish what he was saying.  
"Apart from the grenades, the only original thing about it is the design."

"HEY!! I HEARD THAT!!" an indignant amplified voice filled the air. Before the suits cockpit opened up as a pilot in the standard pale green and black ZAFT pilot suit stepped out of it and turned to the crowd.

"who said that? c'mon!! own up and show yourself!!" at this the blue haired man smirked.  
"Heh, nothing wrong with its audio sensors."

--

Elsewhere in the region an object was approaching the proving ground from a high altitude, descending at speed, a faint trail of green particles following behind it.  
"240082, Exia, target destination confirmed." The pilot said in an emotionless tone.  
"I will cease GN particle dispersion when within 8km of the target." a window opened up on the main screen, showing a close up of the green ZAKU. "Primary target located, proceeding to first phase as planned." The suit continued its rapid descent, it did not take long for the people in the tower overlooking the proving ground to spot the object, or rather the trail of light following it.

"Captain, we have a foreign object approaching, it's coming from 3' o'clock" stated the man who spotted it, immediately their commanding officer got out of his chair.  
"what? Whose unit is that from? where in the middle of a presentation, look into it and identify it immediately." He barked, the officers in the tower got to work.  
"There's no response on the radar! it's being jammed!" said one of the radar operators.  
"Use the camera, identify it visually!" the Captain ordered, no sooner had he said that the towers long range camera zoomed in on the object, and what the tower crew saw surprised them, all they could do was stare at it with awe.  
"What kind of mobile suit is that?" their Captain muttered, is words breaking the silence, on the ground, the ZAKU pilot was listening to the sitrep he was receiving from the tower.

"Huh? An unknown? Why at a time like this.." he was cut off mid sentence as the radio link was severed by interference, he looked up his purple eyes glaring at the incoming suit, his face going from a scowl to one of surprise, although the suits silhouette was familiar, its design was unlike anything he had seen, he was not alone for all of the people sitting in the stadium bleachers were also in awe of it.

"A mobile suit? Amazing, they had another new model to show off as well." The scarred man said.  
"I don't think its one of theirs Waltfeld," remarked the other as it approached. "that light…"  
The new arrival smoothly slid its feet onto the ground as it landed, before turning to face the ZAKU, everyone held their breath as they took in its appearance, the unit was very sleek, much like many if not all of the ZAFT models, yet it had many differences in design that set it apart from them, or any other mobile suit for that matter, most notable was the lack of cooling vents and skirt armour, and also a complete absence of thrusters, not to mention those strange dark green circular convex surfaces on the sides of its elbows, knees, its spherical head and the massive one in the center of its torso, it also had four odd looking protrusions coming out of the back of its shoulders and lower hips, plus the cone like shape coming out of its back, and the metallic bands that could be seen on the limbs, torso, as well as extending over the shoulders which no one could ascertain as to their purpose. The only thing which gave a hint as to what it is, was the V-fin located on its head, which lacked the diamond shaped protrusion, but no one could doubt it's potential hostility due to the giant blade and small shield fixed to its right arm, one of the commanders present, a tall man with silver shoulder length hair and icy blue eyes, pulled out his phone in an attempt to get in contact with the ZAKU's pilot.

"Elmsman, come in Elmsman? Dearka! Damn it, it won't connect" with a snarl he put his phone away, the two men overhearing the conversation.  
"interesting, it failed to connect, all the radio signals are being jammed" the scarred man commented, as a ZAFT solder approached their location.  
"Everyone, please follow our instructions and take shelter" he stated as he began to lead everyone out of their seats.  
"Looks like your right, Athrun, it isn't one of theirs" he remarked before getting up.  
"so who's unit is it?" he asked in return, shifting out the way so his compatriot could move, as they speculated the ZAKU pilot hopped back into the cockpit of his unit, and began the suits startup process.

"So? Who are you working for? The Atlantic Federation? The Erusian Alliance? Well no matter who you are and whoever you're affiliated with, you've stepped into someone else's territory uninvited, I'm not letting you get away that easily." Whilst walking to the shelter, one of the commanders looked up to see the units mono-eye flash, a visual indicator that it was operational.  
"That idiot, what does he think he's doing? Does he know how much money we spent to develop that suit.." A redcoat with long blonde hair walked up to him.  
"It's a good opportunity to see the units abilities, and how it performs in actual combat, you can run all the tests you want, but in the end, the only good simulations are the real thing, Dearka Elmsman is a veteran of the last war is he not? Everything should be fine." Inside the ZAKU the pilot looked upon the other suit with eagerness in his eyes.

"Hey, do you who I am? I'm ZAFT's Dearka Elmsmen, veteran of the last war and former pilot of the Buster" with its left arm the ZAKU pulled a beam axe out from its shield and activated it, crimson energy lighting up along the cutting edge of the blade. "I won't let you say otherwise" on the ground Yzak cringed. "That moron" he muttered to himself, the ZAKU leapt into life, charging at the unknown suit, its axe held upwards at an oblique arc with the intent to slice the other suit in two. "huh? Hey!" Dearka yelled, not liking being ignored by his opponent as the other suit just stood there.

"Exia. Eliminating the target" as the other pilot uttered these words, the ZAKU swung its axe at the suit, before it could connect, the other suits eyes flashed, the giant blade it had swung down to lock into place before the suit brought its right arm upwards, slicing the ZAKU's hand off at the wrist,  
"What the!?" exclaimed Athrun as both suits remained motionless, the ZAKU's hand soon landing with a heavy thud, the beam axe in it's hand shutting down due to a lack of power supply, inside the ZAKU's cockpit Dearka's expression of shock soon gave way to rage.  
"you…bastard, you'll pay for that!" as the other suit straightened itself Dearka's pulled out its beam rifle and fired off a shot, the other suit stepped to one side and did a spin, the bolt of green energy flying past harmlessly, as the suit finished its spin it grabbed the spiky protrusion behind its right shoulder and pulled it out, a phosperent blade igniting as soon as it did so, loping the ZAKU's left arm off, without wasting a moment it dashed forward, slicing its other arm off with the physical blade before removing its head with another slash of its beam sabre, as the what remained of the ZAKU plummeted to the ground, the other suit returned the sabre to its shoulder dock whilst its main blade flded back up to be parallel with its arm, before it went back to its ready stance like nothing had happened.

When it tuned to face the bleachers, Athruns breath caught in his throat as he recognized what type of suit it was, although it was very advanced, that distinctive silhouette was unmistakable, as his eyes nestled on the V-fin that was on the units forehead, one word escaped his lips.

"Gun…dam" Waltfeld and several others looked at him  
"what did you say?" he asked, knowing full well what he said before following Athruns line of sight, he too saw the resemblance to the infamous suits of the last war.  
"Is that the mobile suits name?" inquired someone next to him.  
"Gundam?" asked another, from inside the Gundam's cockpit the pilot gazed at the bleachers, his expression unreadable.  
"Exia. First phase complete. Proceeding to second phase." a loud noise came from the Gundam as green particles and a bright light filtered out of the cone on its back, in defiance of the laws of physics the mobile suit floated in the air effortlessly before turning around and slowly gliding away.

"That light again…how can it do that without any kind of propulsive power?" Yzak inquired, but no one around him was able to provide any answers, where the ZAKU lay Dearka eventually got the hatch open and was standing on the torso yelling lividly, wondering where the mobile suit went and shouting for the pilot to comeback and face him.

"I see, even though its been totaled at least the pilots safety is assured" Waltfeld commented wryly at the spectacle the pilot was creating.  
"But that suit…a checkup on ZAFT, who are going down the path of arms proliferation. or should this be taken as a warning? If that's so then ZAFT definitely won't stay quiet after something like this." As he uttered these words to himself 3 DINNs were quickly scrambled to intercept the mobile suit, which was currently making its way towards the ZAFT orbital elevator, its location only a few kilometres away.

--

Up in space, a long, sleek transport ship was orbiting around the earth silently, keeping a safe distance from the orbital solar energy ring so as to avoid unwanted attention.  
"Ptolemaios' peripheral node continuing to mission mode. Exia has completed the first phase within the calculated time. Once we enter the second phase, we'll re-estimate." a cheerful brunette told the bridge crew.  
"Is Setsuna doing things properly?" asked a muscular man with buzz cut.  
"If he wasn't that would show us Celestial Being's limit." Responded the helmsman, a relaxed young man with medium length hair.  
"Don't waste time chatting! It's almost time to begin the third phase." the brunette chastised, the door to the bridge slid open and an older woman with long dark brown hair floated in clutching a small container in her hands.

"you don't have to be so strict and inflexible." she admonished the brunette "after all, this is our first performance as Celestial Being, might as well go all out." The brunette noticed the container in the other woman's hands.  
"Huh? You're drinking!" she exclaimed.  
"Already?" whined the helmsman.  
"Relax" the older woman told them. "I'm just the strategist, I'll leave the rest to you guys." With that she took a deep swig out of the container.

On the outside of the ship the four containers fixed to its sides began rotating, till one of them was at the top of the ship, the ships front section opening up to reveal a linear catapult.  
"Container loading complete, Kyrios, transporting to catapult deck" announced a pink haired girl manning one of the bridge consoles, inside the ship, a white, orange and black plane shaped mobile armour was being lowered on to the deck, its pilot siting with his eyes closed as he seemed to talk to himself.

"It's time Hallelujah, tired of waiting? god I'm blue" he then put his helmet on and began his pre-launch checks.  
"Kyrios, arrived at the catapult deck. Linear catapult deck voltage increasing from 130 to 520." The pink haired girl told the pilot as the mobile armour was moved forward to dock with the catapult. "Kyrios, at the linear field, Launching preparations complete. Transferring timing to Kyrios." The pilot gripped the control sticks as he finished his pre-launch checks.  
"I have control, Kyrios, commencing operation."

The catapult activated, hurtling the mobile armour along the track with blinding speed, after it cleared the main ship, two wings folded out from the fuselage, as did two radio aerials, as it accelerated away from the ship green particles began to spill out of it, trailing behind the mobile armour as it sped off into the void.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't Gundam SEED or Gundam 00, and so on and so forth.

--

Chapter 3

Atlantic Federation Orbital Space Elevator "Pillar of Heaven"

"The party being hosted at the second Orbital elevator to be completed, nicknamed "Pillar of Heaven", to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the Junius treaty Declaration, as well as the second anniversary of the Orbital Solar rings completion, is in full swing. Representatives from each of the member nations involved in the construction of the orbital ring and elevator system are attending this party. Also attending are many Celebrities, representatives from various industries as well as the military." Stated the news reporter present at the massive gathering, struggling slightly to be heard over the throng of conversation caused by so many being present, it was an interesting sight, amongst all the designer dresses and expensive tuxes several military uniforms could be made out, though most of them were earth alliance uniforms, with the occasional flash of a ZAFT or ORB uniform here and there, with the ZAFT officers staying mainly in one corner of the large ball room where the party was being hosted.

_Even though we're all supposed to be friends both sides are still regarding the other with suspicion and contempt_. Mused a young woman, her long silky black hair done up in buns, as well two long braids that reached her waist, with bangs neatly framing her face in a bob cut, _that will soon change, as will everything else. _A voice brought her out of her thoughts, in which see turned to see a waiter asking if she wanted something to drink, and quickly turning red with embarrassment, that might have had some thing to do with the dress she was wearing, a maroon dress that started as in the style of a sleeveless cheongsam for the upper section, while below the shoulders it was in the style of a ball gown that went all the way down to the floor, wrapping around her legs before billowing out slightly, with a large portion of the lower back left bare, despite covering her neckline completely the dress was tight fitting around the torso region and left nothing to the imagination.

"I'll have one thanks" she responded with a smile, crossing her hands behind her back to accentuate her bust further, trying to make the waiter more uncomfortable than he already was, she made her way over to him and took a long thin bottle with a straw poking out of it from the tray.  
"If your face stays like that you'll lose some manliness" she teased before floating away with a giggle, as she took a sip of the bottles' contents a young mature looking man wearing a dark blue changshan approached her, his hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.  
"It has begun, my lady" he informed her, as she finished sipping from the bottle her eyes narrowed, her expression changing from playful to serious.  
"I see, they have begun to move. Celestial Being's Gundam Meisters…"

--

The three DINNs caught up with the gundam as it continued its accent towards the pillar, immediately opening fire with their machine guns as soon as they got into range, the gundam veered to the right, avoiding the volley of gunfire and letting the DINNs pass overhead, as they circled to make another pass, the pilot readied the weapon on the gundams right arm, firing off a few shots from a small beam rifle fixed to the shield, as the pink phospherent shots flew wide the giant blade swung down to cover the barrel and lock in place as the gundam accelerated upwards, making an upwards slash at the closest DINN, slicing its right arm off at the elbow, as the DINN fell back to earth, one of the others got into position behind the gundam for its attack run, readying it's shotgun to fire in conjunction with the machine gun.  
"You're mine!" the pilot announced as the crosshairs locked on and he fired off another volley, to his dismay the gundam strafed left and he missed completely.  
"Such mobility! I can't land a hit on that thing, how can a mobile suit like that even exist!?" he whined at his flight leader.  
"Don't break formation! Reinforcements will be arriving shortly" true to the flight leaders word, 6 more DINNs were launched from the pillar itself to intercept the gundam.

"As I thought, ZAFT as armaments concealed inside the pillar, including mobile suit and fighter bays" the gundam's pilot mused, increasing its acceleration upwards towards the oncoming DINNs.

"Lockon! Reinforcements approaching. Reinforcements approaching." Chirped an orange haro, its owner chuckling inside his cockpit as he observed the battle unfold.  
"This might be tough even for Setsuna, by the looks of things he has his hands full." The pilot propped his leg up on center console in front of him. Grabbing hold of a large aiming module.  
"Well, s'pose I'd better help him out and aim at a few of them. Let's go! Gundam Dynames and Lockon Stratos shall win the first battle."

The airborne gundam continued to dodge the incoming fire, weaving and blocking the bullets that hurtled towards it, with movements so graceful it almost seemed as if it was dancing. But each second it wasted on the defensive gave the DINN pilots more time to surround it.  
"Keep your distance!" ordered the flight leader. "Even though it's a new model, it's just one enemy. Surround it and engage." A second later, a pink energy beam came out of nowhere, striking the DINN sneaking behind the gundam and causing heavy damage.  
"Enemy attack!" called one of the pilots.  
"From where!?" demanded the flight leader, another beam shot out from below, cutting through the clouds and striking his wingman, the flight leader was aghast.  
"Energy beam! From below!?" he yelled, unable to determine where the shots were coming from.  
"Is it Lockon?" the gundam pilot asked himself, back a ground level, another gundam, similar in design to the airborne one, lay back against a small cliff face, a large sniper rifle in it's hands.  
"Dynames, sniping the targets" the pilot declared, before firing another 5 shots, each shot disabling one DINN each, leaving only one left.  
"my wingmen have all been taken out!" the pilot yelled frantically, noticing that the airborne gundam was right in front of him, he could do nothing but look in horror as the gundam sliced into his DINN, sending him spiraling back to the earth below.  
"Second phase." The pilot began, returning the blade to its folded position.  
"Is complete." Finished the other pilot as the other gundam lowered its sniper rifle the scope in the other gundam's forehead retracting back inside as the V-fin slid up to conceal it.

In the car park of the proving a teal SUV sat, it's occupants in deep discussion about the gundam that appeared.  
"That mobile suit is trying to reveal ZAFT's military strength?" asked the passenger, the same blond woman that was talking with the PLANTs chairman during the gundams appearance.  
"yeah, ZAFT is trying to show the world that it possesses far more military strength than what the Junius treaty allows." The other occupant responded coolly. "This is a warning to the constitutional government." The woman looked at him and smiled slightly.  
"Why do you think that Athrun?" she asked  
"You should ask the pilot of that gundam." He answered. "but…I doubt ZAFT will stay quiet with things like this occurring, speaking of which, where did the Chairman go?"  
"Durandal?" Cagalli responded "He's off doing political damage control, as well as trying to figure out how their multi million dollar latest model top of the line suit was reduced to scrap metal in seconds."  
"I see." Athrun murmured, gazing at the giant pillar that sat in the distance.

--

Up in space, a huge piece of debris bounced off the giant orbital ring, triggering a response in the warning sensors at the Atlantic Federation Geosynchronous Orbital Station nearby, it's purpose to monitor all activity near the Federations Orbital Elevator, in a heartbeat it relayed the signal to the CIC of the Nelson class battleship _Durham, _that was stationed in the area.  
"There's another response from E-sensor" muttered one of the CIC officers, the monitor in front of him blinked as it brought up new information. "There's been a lot of debris today."  
"Isn't it a little big?" asked the officer to his left.  
"I'm sure some debris from an old satellite got stuck." Remarked another.  
"Make sure we're on high alert." their commanding officer told them "Don't forget that they're holding the ceremony at the Pillar of Heaven."  
"Roger" responded the first officer. He brought a zoomed in picture of the area where the sensor was tripped onto the main screen, to which everyone could make out several objects moving alongside the orbital ring.  
"Whats that? Putting it on the monitor." He announced as he brought another image up that was zoomed in closer.  
"Mobile suits?!" the Commanding officer called out, on the screen where four GINNs, two of which were carrying one M66 'Canus' guided missile launcher in addition to their standard machine guns. "It can't be! They're breaking past the debris! With the shields interference, not only their mobile suits, but their bodies can pass through as well!" the lead GINN exploded as it veered too close to one of the solar arrays.  
"I knew it!" the commanding officer continued "They've certainly prepared themselves well…" the second CIC officer looked at him. "Are they terrorists?" he asked.  
"Scramble the third defense unit" the commanding officer barked ignoring the man's question.

There was flurry of activity in the _Durham's_ hanger bay, as support crews rushed to get three GAT–01A1 Daggers ready to sortie. "Damn it! Of all things, they target the ceremony!" complained one of the pilots.  
"Lieutenant, I've only had 120 hours of training in space…" the other pilot told the squad leader.  
"stop them no matter what!" the lieutenant ordered. "If you do that you'll get a double promotion!"  
"the loading of equipment won't finish on time!" a tech told the lieutenant as he was about to enter his cockpit.  
"I know that!" he growled back, in one the hallways, an officer with cropped gray hair was making his way to the locker room so he could get suited up.  
"GINNs you say? Damn ZAFT…this is what happens when no one bothers to check their armory's inventory properly or dispose of old suits in the correct manner." He ranted at no one in particular.

At the ceremony on Federation officer approached another and whispered something to his ear before moving off to find another officer to relay the situation, the woman in the maroon dress noticing the Federation officers discreetly filter out of the room, but leaving the other guests, particularly the ZAFT, Erusian and ORB officers, behind.  
"My, my." she said, raising one eyebrow "They're the only ones leaving in groups. How selfish."  
"Should we seek shelter?" the man with the pony tail asked.  
"No need." She responded lowering her head slightly "But as expected of Miss Sumeragi, an admirable prediction."

The Daggers were moved to their respective catapults on the _Durham_, the third having to wait for a free catapult before it could be launched.  
"Allow maximum for B3 area. The next squad will scramble in 300 seconds. Response in B3 area to an unknown." Announced the bridge, The suits were quickly launched, their pilots entering a close formation.  
"Control to units. 0287 until the unknown approaches the pillar" the ships radar officer informed them, relaying coordinates for the Daggers to follow.  
"Heading out." The Lieutenant said. "Block the enemy's routes!" he ordered his wingmen. The GINNs changed their flight path, putting the solar array between them and the Daggers  
"The enemy is altering movements!" informed one of the pilots. "Damn it! They're hiding in the ring!" the lieutenant flew up to intercept.  
"follow them!" he barked. "Lieutenant! We can't take them!" bemoaned the other pilot.  
"Don't give up!" his wingman admonished. The three Daggers opened up with their machine guns, the streams of tracer ammunition flying towards their target in a wide arc, the GINNs however were moving too fast and the bullets missed.  
"Damn it!" the Lieutenant swore. The two missile launcher carrying GINNs slowed down and readied their weapons.  
"The enemy is in position to attack!" announced one of the _Durham's _CIC officers. The GINNs launched their payload, the large missiles streaking towards the pillar.  
"They're en route for a direct hit!" the officer announced, panicking "The interceptors won't make it in time!" the missiles continued to their target, and everyone on the _Durham's _CIC held their breath, before the missiles could hit, a bright pink bolt of energy struck them, and they exploded prematurely, fragments of shrapnel hitting the pillar instead, The ceremony guests looked around in confusion, trying to figure out where the explosion came from.

"Gundam" the woman in the maroon dress whispered, outside a white and orange mobile armour approached the pillar. "Gundam Kyrios."  
"What's that!" yelled the Lieutenant as he sped towards the pillar, his wingmen close behind him.  
"Sumeragi's predictions are quite impressive." The mobile armour pilot said to himself. Two of the GINN's turned to face the mobile armour and opened fire whilst the other made a break for it, charging towards the pillar, the mobile armour did several barrel rolls, dodging the incoming bullets before firing several rapid bursts from it's beam sub-machine gun, destroying both GINNs.  
"Damn it, no way I can reach him or attack without damaging the pillar." He grumbled, seeing that the remaining GINN was too far ahead for him to intercept. "Tieria!" he called out, unable to do anymore as the GINN continued its suicide run.  
"An unknown is charging in!" the 2nd CIC officer informed his Commanding officer, the _Durham_ was also powerless for the same reason as the mobile armour that appeared, a large bulky white and black mobile suit flew up in front of the pillar blocking the GINNs path, spraying mysterious green particles over a large area, the unknown suits presence interfering with all communication and radar devices near its location, shutting down the Durham's CIC, and leaving the party-goers more confused than before, save one woman in a maroon dress, who just smirked. "Virtue." She whispered.

"Virtue. Eliminating the target" the new arrivals pilot announced, the suit brought a massive cannon to bear, and after a short delay unleashed a blast equal in power to a Lohengrin positron cannon if not greater, vaporizing the oncoming GINN.  
"Third phase completed." Its pilot informed the mobile armour pilot who had just caught up.  
"Geez Tieria, talk about overkill…" the pilot muttered back, having seen the blast along with all the party-goers, who turned to look out the window and saw both the mobile suit and mobile armour, the news reporter who was at the ceremony struck with awe as her cameraman was filming the two unknown arrivals.  
"what…what is that?" she stammered.

--

Authors notes: God this is taking forever, I wish I had more hands, then I could type quicker.

Just so you know, kira will be appearing (boo, hiss, etc) but he won't actually be entering combat till way later in the story, he won't be godlike in combat, and there will be no strike freedom or infinite justice either, freedom will be there but with a couple of modifications.

Oh and sorry I'm not using names for some characters yet, it's just my way of doing things, plus it's fun to see readers try to figure out who's who on their own, cos I believe that they're intelligent and can figure most things out for themselves.


	4. Chapter 4

Don't own gundam, please R&R, I have no idea if this is going good or not cos I'm not receiving any feedback.  
--

Chapter 4

April 2, ZAFT battleship LHM-BB01 _Minerva_, Armoury 1, PLANTs

Being a Elite pilot in the ZAFT armed forces, redcoat Shinn Auska was trained to deal with many situations, unfortunately for him, the current situation he was in was not one of them.  
"Come ON Shinn, your lagging behind again." Chastised the redhead that was literally dragging him through the hallways of the _Minerva_ by his arm.  
"Bu…but Luna…first your going to rip my arm off if you pull any harder, and second why are you dragging me to the cafeteria?" Shinn protested, he was in the middle of a software update for the Impulse when his fellow pilot ran into the hanger babbling about something 'he had to see' and dragged him off before he could even decline.  
"Listen Shinn, apparently something happened during the Junius treaty's 4th anniversary, everyone's in the cafeteria to catch the news report that will be on any minute now." She shot back, frustrated with how difficult he was being.  
"So?" Shinn questioned, not seeing how that was important.  
"It's just important ok, trust me, besides, the Captain wants everyone there." Lunamaria told him, taking a left at one of the hallway intersections.  
"Really? Why didn't you say so as opposed to dragging me off without explaining anything?" Shinn whined, Lunamria let out an exasperated sigh.  
"It was announced on the intercom 5 minutes ago! You were so wrapped up in updating the Impulse's software that you didn't hear it!" Shinn opened his mouth but couldn't say anything, a few seconds later they entered the cafeteria.  
"Just in time." One of the redcoats called out, motioning at the two pilots to come over to him, he promptly pointed at two free seats that were next to him. "So what took you so long?" he asked with an amused tone.  
"Thanks for saving us some seats Westenfluss." Lunamaria said, slightly out of breath from running all over the place. "Shinn didn't hear the intercom announcement, so I had to go look for him." She pointed her thumb in Shinns' direction.  
"Anyways." Shinn interrupted, in a bid to divert the subject.  
"Why exactly is it that the Captain wanted us to watch the morning news?" Heine sat up a bit and cleared his throat.  
"Terrorists in mobile suits launched missiles at the Atlantic federation's orbital elevator during the ceremony for 4th anniversary of the Junius treaty signing, and they were taken out by mobile suits." _That's it?_ Shinn thought angrily. _I was dragged away from updating the Impulse's software to hear about some amateur MS pilots getting blown up? Ok, be calm, just find out who shot them down and walk away._  
"Mobile suits huh? From which army?" he asked.  
"That's the thing." Heine responded. "No one knows who the guys were that took the terrorists out, no insignia, no squad markings, even the mobile suits they used are of unknown origin, well that's the rumor anyway" Upon hearing this Shinn immediately became more interested, _Unknown mobile suits? I think I might stay a bit longer._  
"Shh! It's starting." One of the greencoat pilots hissed, all three redcoats ceased conversation and looked up, their eyes glued to the screen.

"Good morning, welcome to the PLANTs morning news. Our first story is the attack on the Atlantic Federations Space elevator." Started the news anchor, Shinn couldn't help but get irritated, there was something about the news anchors cheery attitude, particularly that fake smile she put on, which did nothing but irk him.  
"During the ceremony for Junius treaty's 4th anniversary, mobile suits suspected to be terrorists attacked the Atlantic Federation Orbital station, we cross live to one of our reporters, who was on the scene at the time of the attack, providing coverage of the ceremony itself." The screen cut to a backdrop of the ballroom that was used to host the ceremony, with the solitary reporter in the giant room by herself.  
"At 6pm Greenwich Mean Time, mobile suits suspected to be terrorists launched missiles at the Orbital Station. Furthermore two unidentified mobile suits intercepted them, this is a recording made by our cameraman by coincidence." It cut again to show the footage the cameraman caught during the attack, a large cloud of pink smoke could be seen as it dispersed, the camera then panned to the right, and zoomed in on a bulky black and white mobile suit.  
"Hey! That looks similar to the unit that was seen at Carpentaria." Lunamaria whispered.  
"So it does…" Heine whispered back. "Although it's rather bulky by comparison, the resemblance is there." The footage stopped running and the screen cut back to the news anchor.  
"We have breaking news." The anchor announced. "We have just received a video message from the group that prevented the terrorist attack. Their identity and true intent remain unclear, but it is clear that they have a strong connection to this incident. We will be airing this footage uncut, so please watch closely."

The video message began immediately afterwards, showing an old man in a black suit with a walking stick and a monocle sitting a chair, with a large open window as a backdrop, underneath the chair was a circular rug with a strange logo on it, it depicted a gold bird and halo in front of a picture of the earth framed by a wreath.  
"This is an announcement for all of mankind who have been raised on earth and the PLANTs." The old man stated, the tone in his voice commanding respect.  
"We are Celestial Being. We are the paramilitary organization that possesses the mobile weapon, Gundam. Celestial Being's goal is to eradicate the act of war in this world. We will not act for our own benefit or profit. We stand for the greater goal of eradicating war. Now, we have a proclamation for all humankind. Political parties, religion, energy, ones' genetic status. No matter the reason, against all deeds of war, we will do all that is within our power to intervene. Countries who indulge in war, organizations, enterprises, and others, will be faced with our armed force. We are Celestial Being. A paramilitary Organization that exists to eradicate war from this world. I repeat. This is a declaration for all of mankind who have been raised on earth or in space."

The video message looped itself then, replaying the same message again and again, everyone left speechless as they processed what they had heard.  
_Paramilitary organization? Celesital Being? Gundams?_ The only thoughts going on in Shinn's head. _I thought only ORB, ZAFT, and the Earth Alliance had the technology to make Gundams. What the hell is going on?_  
At the Carpentaria base's medical wing, mobile suit pilot Dearka Elmsman was ranting furiously after seeing the broadcast. "That's them! Those are the guys who landed me in here!"  
"SHUT UP!" his visitor yelled. "You landed yourself in here by being a moron!" Dearka's opened and closed a few times an indignant expression on his face, but he was unable to make a sharp comeback at Yzak.  
Inside a teal SUV heading away from the ZAFT proving ground, one of the occupants laughed out loud after hearing Celesital Being's declaration on the radio.  
"This is a masterpiece! Using armed force to stop a war!" Andrew Waltfeld said, his cheerful expression soon turned serious "Celestial Being, you're Contradicting yourself."  
"Indeed…" Athrun responded, remaining focused on the road ahead as he was driving, Cagalli was silent in response, but agreed with Waltfelds notion. _Every time we try to make things better for all, it keeps getting screwed up, why'd you have to die father? I could really use your help right now.  
_Miles away from Carpentaria, at a hotel penthouse in Brisbane, a man with long dark hair stood on the balcony the video message from Celestial Being could be heard from a TV in the room. _This was unexpected_. He mused, nursing a small glass of alcohol with an ice cube in it._ And yet so very interesting at the same time._

In ORB a woman with shoulder length brown hair found herself staring at the giant screen on the side of a building as the video message repeated itself.  
"End the war by waging war…" she said to herself before walking away, concern etched into her face.

On board the _Durham_. A grey haired man watched the broadcast from the back of the cafeteria with detached interest.  
"Declaration of a counter offensive huh?" he mused. "Things are going to get very nasty from here on."  
Inside the Atlantic federations orbital elevator, a linear train sped down to earth, one of the occupants smiling to herself, her black hair now done up in two giant pigtails.  
"The world is changing." she whispered to her aide, who sat in the chair adjacent to hers.  
At an undisclosed location, a man in his 30's wearing a brown suit watched the broadcast, his expression unreadable.  
"The world is taking a path we did not plan for." He said to himself "This 'Celestial Being' could be a future problem." An aide came into the room.  
"Lord Djbril, the other members are here." He said, slightly fearful of the man.  
"I see." He responded, getting up and turning the TV off before leaving the room.

In the Pacific Ocean, on one of the Marshal islands, a young man with messy brown hair watched the broadcast repeat with a sad expression on his face, subconsciously his hands scrunched up into a fist, a young woman with long pink hair entered the room and saw him like that, she went over and began rubbing his back to calm him down, soon enough he unclenched his fists, she then turned the TV off and led him away from the room so he could calm down properly.

At the Victoria base, one the pilots, a young man with blonde hair and green eyes was staring at his mobile suit, anticipation in his eyes after hearing the broadcast. _Finally._ he thought. _I've finally found it. my reason to live is here, can't wait to face one of these 'gundams'._

Up in space, onboard the transport ship _Ptolemaios_, it's crew, including the two mobile suit pilots who intercepted the terrorists, were gathered at the bridge, listening to the broadcast they sent to all the media stations.  
"Hallelujah. I feel like I can see the world's evil will. " The mobile armour pilot said softly, more to himself than anyone else, the pilot behind him however, heard what he had said.  
"Mankind is being tested by Celestial Being." He said in response, his expression neutral.  
"That's an evil deed…" the ship strategist mused quietly.

On an uninhabited Island in the Indian Ocean, a man switched off a PDA he held after hearing the broadcast.  
"It's begun. It has finally begun. And it can't be stopped." The orange Haro at his feet began bouncing up and down, flapping its wings.  
"Can't be stopped. Can't be stopped. Can't be stopped." It chirped, the man turned to the person next to him.  
"Setsuna. We just picked a fight with the entire human race. You do realize that?"  
the other man straightened himself as he took his helmet off.  
"Yeah, I know." He said, before looking up, gazing at the two mobile suits in front of him, the white armour panels glinting in the moonlight.  
"It can't be helped...We are Celestial Being's...Gundam Meisters."


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own Gundam, blah blah blah…

--

Chapter 5

Brisbane, Australia.

It had been 17 hours since Celestial Being made their Declaration to end war, the various TV channels and radio stations kept repeating the message again and again well into the afternoon, much to Yzak's chagrin, who was on his way with Major Shiho Hahnenfuss to meet with the Chairman personally, why it had to be personally Yzak had no idea, but for the sake of his sanity he figured the Chairman was airing on the side of caution, and rightly so, as the events which had transpired in the last 24 hours had everyone on edge.

_Flashback_

_"YOU MORON!! What were you thinking!!" Bellowed the silver haired commander, eyes ablaze. "You were given very clear instructions were you not?! You were told to be careful with the demonstration unit and in the event of another mobile suit showing up you were to hold back and wait for backup, only attacking if you were attacked. And what did you do? You charged in, without backup, completely disregarding your orders, wrecked the mobile suit, and landed yourself in hospital!" Dearka looked down, avoiding Yzak's gaze, knowing he had screwed up.  
"…Sorry, I wasn't thinking.." he mumbled.  
"Damn right you weren't thinking!! When that Natural girlfriend of yours dumped you did she perform a frontal lobotomy on you in the process?!"  
"Hey! leave Miriallia out of this, I screwed up, I know that, but it's not entirely my fault, some of the blame goes to that mobile suit that showed up." Dearka pointed out. "Besides, its not like you haven't charged in, no guts no glory style either."  
"And look where some of those attempts landed me! I ended up shooting down a transport filled with civilians. Women and children Dearka! They died cos I rushed in and let my emotions get the better of me." Yzak exploded, angry with himself over that event, something that to this day haunts him in his sleep.  
"Like you are now…" Dearka mumbled to himself, unfortunately Yzak heard him  
"Do not be a fucking smartass with me Dearka! I'm not in the mood right now." At that point Shiho opened the door and entered the room.  
"you two need to see this" she said, turning the TV on, before the other two could say anything they saw the video footage of the Black and white mobile suit and immediately afterwards the Video declaration from Celestial Being, which they spent for the most part in silence, barring Dearka's outburst which was promptly cut down by Yzak.  
"Major." Yzak said, his voice snapping everyone present out of his or her thoughts. "is there anything else you came here for?" Shiho looked down for a bit before she remembered  
"Yes, we are to meet with the PLANTs Chairman Gilbert Durandal personally at his hotel room in Brisbane, a plane has already been arranged to send us there with a car waiting once we land." Yzak stood up and began to straighten out his commanders uniform.  
"Very well." he said, Shiho immediately opening the door in response "I'll be back as soon as I sort this out." He told Dearka, who nodded in response, before walking out the door closing it behind him._

_End flashback._

Thinking back to how he handled that situation, Yzak admitted to himself that he may have been a bit harsh with Dearka, he also reminded himself that it was part and parcel of being a commander, leaving his thoughts behind he tapped the driver on his shoulder and requested that he turned the radio off, being sick of hearing the same message over and over.  
"I was wondering when you were going to do that." Shiho said, gazing absently out of the car window, her head propped up on her left arm.  
"They've been playing that Celestial Being message all day, gets a bit tiresome after hearing it for the 50th time." Yzak reasoned, Shiho looked away from the window towards Yzak.  
"What do you think of them?" she asked, Yzak gave a confused expression, not quite sure what she was talking about.  
"Celestial Being, Commander, will they really stop war with no strings attached?" Yzak thought for a minute.  
"In all honesty I don't know Major, either way it just creates more work for us." Shiho seemed to be content with that answer and the rest of the trip was spent in silence. Soon enough they arrived at the hotel and made their way to the penthouse room, where the Chairman was staying, waiting outside the penthouse door was a male redcoat with shoulder length blonde hair.  
"Commander Joule" he said, opening the door, straightening his uniform once again, Yzak went inside, with Shiho following close behind.

--

"The group that stopped the attack on the 'Pillar of Heaven' eh?" Said Joseph Copeland, sitting on Lord Djbril's left, who had played the message that Celestial Being sent to the media on a large screen in the room, where all the other Atlantic federation members were present.  
"The probability is high. Just from the speech it is obvious that they have Gundams." Djbril responded. He brought up an image on the projection screen, which showed a close up of the bulky mobile suit.  
"Please look at this, This is the video footage that shows the unknown mobile suit" the picture zoomed in on the suit, focusing on a black armour panel in the center of the unit's torso, on it the word Gundam had been stamped or engraved into the metal. The rest of the Federation members looked at it again before closing their eyes, remaining silent in contemplation.

At the PLANTs supreme council on Aprillius one, things weren't quite as relaxed, the Council members watching footage taken from the main camera of the ZAKU unit that faced off against the Gundam and lost.  
"Our newest unit…completely outclassed!" bemoaned Orson white, Council member of Sextilis City.  
"Do you think they attacked us to prevent us from making a strong unit?" Alan Clarzec inquired.  
"That's not the only problem…They showed the world that we had exceeded the maximum amount of units allowed. Everyone is demanding information on this." Stated Louise Leitner.  
"There is a rumor that the Erusian Alliance, or the Atlantic Federation stopped the attack. But to create the Gundams would require a large amount of money so it is possible." Said Parnell Jesek, who sat to her left.  
"True…an army would require a strong backing, and the Earth alliance were the first to make Gundams." Agreed Neu Kazaefsky.  
"Anyway, the other three groups don't have credible information on the Celestial Being." Ail Kasim added.  
"One important point remains." Said Tokao Schreiber, the others leaned in to hear the rest.  
"Celestial Being's Gundams Completely surpassed our unit."

"Stopping war through force…Yuna, it looks like they want to take over." Mused Unato Ema Seiran as he looked out the window of the Seiran estate.  
"Father, are they serious? Even with no profit?" Yuna asked, Unato turned around.  
"We go to war to protect our country and our profits, we are not a charity." he stated, a grin crept upon Yuna's face.  
"Their lie will soon be discovered, so we must judge Celestial Being after the truth is exposed."  
"That's true…" Unato agreed, turning around to look out the window again. "It's been two years since the solar elevator has been completed, the economy is finally stable, and then this happens."

--

Out in the Indian Ocean, on a seemingly uninhabited island, two figures sat next to a small river that ran through a clearing amidst the thick jungle canopy, not far way from their location two massive pale blue containers sat hidden amongst the trees.  
"Our broadcast has been shown everywhere." Lockon told his companion. "They call us the Mysterious Army that will stop all war in the world. But I am sure that no-one actually trusts us."  
"Then lets get them to trust us." A feminine voice cut through the air, both men looked up to see a young woman in a safari outfit, her long black hair tied into a ponytail, standing in the river was her aide, holding her above the knee deep water bridal style, her arms draped around his neck. "We will show them proof through our actions."  
"Wang Liu Mei." Setsuna said.  
"You got here fast." Lockon replied, she merely smiled.  
"It's time for the second mission."

On the outskirts of the Carpentaria base a Teal Nissan Patrol SUV was parked on the side of the road, Athrun had pulled over to get some rest, while Andrew was typing away on his laptop, a cup filled with one of his coffee experiments sitting on the flip down table that was attached to the back of the drivers seat.  
"Don't you and lady Cagalli have to get back to ORB? Everyone must be panicking." Andrew remarked.  
"I want to know about the Gundams power, they are too special. Their combat power is good, can't be picked up on radar and blocks cellular transmissions. It's all due to that light." Athrun reasoned.  
"Waltfeld, what is that?" Cagalli asked.  
"All I know so far is that it's due to the special particles." Andrew explained, taking a sip from his coffee cup before continuing. "That light definitely has something to do with it."  
"special particles…." Athrun muttered, another SUV pulled up in front of theirs, all three immediately got out of their vehicle.  
"It's not just that." Andrew continued "There must be other secrets behind it….I have a hunch"  
"huh?" Athrun said, looking at him quizically.  
"I am more than just interested in this." Waltfeld finished. The driver of the other vehicle walked up to the three and saluted.  
"Andrew Waltfeld, an order from M. Squad" the man said, Andrew saluted in response knowing what the man meant.  
"Please return with me." He said to Athrun and Cagalli.

On board the _Ptolemaios_ preparations were being made for the next mission.  
"We will begin the second mission from point 330." The brunette tactical operator's voice echoing through out the ship via the intercom system.  
"An actual fighting test. I hate this." complained Kyrios' pilot as the tactical operator repeated her announcement.  
"We need to know our Gundam's potential." Reasoned Tieria as he followed behind him.  
"that's true, But…"  
"Sorry for pushing you." Interrupted the ship's strategist as she was about to pass them, making her way towards the bridge.  
"Miss Sumeragi." The pilot said out of respect.  
"No problem, it's for our readiness." said Tieria. Sumeragi stopped moving as they passed by.  
"Be strong" she said encouragingly.  
"I don't plan to be weak." he retorted and he set off towards his mobile suit.  
"Lets go." The other pilot said, following him.  
"So young…" Sumeragi said to herself.  
The front section of the _Ptolemaios_ opened up as a container was rotated to the top of the ship.  
"Container is in position. Transferring Kyrios to the Catapult Deck." Read out the pink-haired tactical operator, Kyrios was lowered to the Catapult Deck, a large black container attached to Kyrios' rear.  
"Moving to catapult mode" Stated the brunette operator, two large rails slid forward from their stored position on either side of the ship's prow, several flaps opening up as it did so. "Kyrios has entered the Linear Field." She continued.  
"Preparations complete. Timing is yours." Said the pink-haired operator.  
"I have control. Kyrios, Allelujah Haptism launching." The pilot announced, like before Kyrios was launched out at incredible speed. The container rotation cycle began again, this time the bulky suit was lowered onto the Catapult Deck, the two operators going through their launch preparations once again.  
"Linear Field on hold, Preparations complete." Said the pink haired one, as the base that the suit was mounted to came to a halt it was tilted forward 45 degrees.  
"Control over to Virtue." Said the brunette.  
"Understood, Virtue, Tieria Erde launching." Virtue sped out of the ship, moving to catch up with Kyrios.

Back on earth, the other two pilots rushed to their respective Gundams, one carrying an orange Haro under one arm.  
"On time, on Schedule." It announced, the two pilots leaping into the cockpits of their mobile suits, as they fastened themselves in the cockpit hatches closed and the Gundams began their startup process, confirming the pilots via retinal, voice and biometric scanning.  
"GN System online, priority to Setsuna F. Seiei." Stated Exia's pilot, Lockon placed the Haro in a special dock at resided in Dynames' cockpit.  
"Lets get moving, partner." He said to it, the two containers began to open up, Wang Liu Mei and her aide watching as they stood nearby.  
"Hatch open! Hatch open!" Stated the Haro. Once the hatches were completely open, the Gundams were raised from prone to a standing position. "Exia, Dynames Launch preparations. Launch preparations." When the Gundams were completely vertical, the dark green convex surfaces on them flashed a bright teal colour, the eyes doing the same as the suits went online. Exia began to stride forward as Dynames grabbed it's sniper rifle from the container and mounted it on it's right shoulder dock, before moving into position next to Exia.  
"GN Particles Dispersing, Dispersing." Haro continued, as green particles spilled out of the giant cones that were part of the Gundam's backs.  
"Exia, Setsuna F. Seiei, beginning second mission." Setsuna stated.  
"Dynames. Lockon Stratos launching." Lockon stated as well. The two giant machines lifted off the ground, floating effortlessly before accelerating into the sky, Exia leading the way with Dynames following behind.  
"Gundam." Liu Mei's aide said.  
"Yes, Celestial Beings proof of action." She replied, watching the Gundams disappear into the horizon with a happy expression.

Kyrios and Virtue reached the outer layer of the earth's atmosphere, with the intention of attempting atmospheric re-entry, large pods fixed to Virtue's lower legs and upper back opened up, spreading GN particles.  
"GN particles, sprinkler system online" Tieria said before pushing forward, the particles condensing in front of the suit, Kyrios hung back for a little bit before doing the same.  
"Even though I did this on the simulator so many times.." Allelujah worried to himself.  
"We have arrived at the entry point. Beginning re-entry." Tieria stated cutting Allelujah off, Virtue rocketed forward into the Earth's atmosphere.  
"Tieria, goodness, I wish I had your bravery…" Allelujah said to himself before following, the heat generated from the Gundams re-entry picked up by the _Durham_.  
"Sir we have an unidentified contact, entering the Atmosphere." said one of the CIC officers.  
"What? We had no report on this." The Commanding officer replied.  
"Bringing it up on screen." The CIC officer said before bringing up the image, two bright red objects speeding into the atmosphere, with green particles wrapped around them like a cocoon.  
"It's Gundam…" stated a Grey haired officer as he entered the CIC room, the Commanding officer saluting him.  
"Commander!" he said, but the other paid no heed, focusing his eyes on the two objects.  
"Looks like these Gundams can perform re-entry without assistance." He mused, before turning to one of the CIC officers. "What's their trajectory?" He asked.  
"Please wait a moment." The CIC officer stated before looking up the information.  
"…If they continue on this trajectory. Their destination is." He paused before bringing the Gundams destination up on the main screen. "South India, Ceylon Island."  
"That's our territory!" the Commanding officer stated, aghast, the Grey haired mans eyes narrowed.  
"Bastards. Your actually going to do this!?" he growled.

The two Gundams slowed down their descent as they entered the lower atmosphere, the fiery contrail they built up disappearing.  
"Virtue, GN particle level returning to normal." Uttered Tieria, the pods fixed to it's limbs closed themselves.  
"Way to go, Kyrios." Allelujah said thankfully. "Yeah. I know, it's time for the mission."  
As Kyrios and Virtue continued their descent, Exia and Dynames sped low along the waterline to rendezvous with them, Lockon spotting the trail of GN particles each suit left behind them.  
"Found them Setsuna, it's Allelujah and Tieria." He told Exia's pilot.  
"Confirmed, heading to the missions first point." Setsuna responded, the two Gundams changing their heading, gaining altitude as they went to meet up with the other two suits.

"Celestial being has made a move." An incoming message boy told Unato as he entered the mans study.  
"Where" he asked sternly.  
"Southern India, the Island we used to call Sri Lanka."

"Their actions are on schedule." Stated Djbril, having received the information as well, he dismissed the courier officer and looked at the other high-ranking officers present.  
"If that's the way it is, that is fine. We may get ahold of a Gundam."

The four Gundams continued their course towards Ceylon Island, The pilots' thoughts drifting back towards the mission briefing.

_Flashback.  
_  
"_Ceylon Island currently has no Government_,_ The reason is a Racial war between the Sinhala and Tamil people, this fight has been going on since the twentieth century, well before the cosmic era. We, Celestial being will intervene." Explained Sumeragi_.

_End flashback._

"…racial war." Setsuna mumbled to himself.

Heading north of the ZAFT Carpentaria base was an Orb Transport plane, Carrying in it Representative Cagalli Yula Athha, Athrun Zala, and Andrew Waltfeld, the three were discussing the news they heard about the gundams and their Destination.  
"Old Sri lanka…" Began Cagalli. "From 10 years ago, The Atlantic federation supports the Tamil people."  
"Yes, with the intention of stopping the war. But that's not true." Waltfeld cut in. "The Atlantic Federations real goal was to gain control of the Equatorial Union, effectively giving them control over the Indian ocean, blocking all supply routes from Australaisia to North Africa, and vice versa, and preventing ZAFTs only two territories from assisting each other, the area sympathetic to the Atlantic Federation has a strong Tamil presence. But, it is much worse than before. That is why there is no Government." Andrew paused for a bit before hailing the planes co-pilot on the intercom.  
"Yes sir?" he inquired.  
"You, Tell the Captain to change course" Waltfeld said. "Head west, and prep the Murasame for launch." Athrun looked at him in shock.  
"What, That's absurd!" he stated.  
"I'm aware of that." Waltfeld calmly replied.


	6. Chapter 6

I don't own any of the Gundam character, mobile suits, etc, etc.  
--

Chapter 6

Ceylon Island, Southern India, Equatorial Union.

The skyline in Ceylon Island was thick with black smoke, the sound of explosions and gunfire filling the air, as a fierce battle was waged on the ground below.

The area of conflict was a plateau overlooking a large clearing, on top of the plateau stood several GAT-01D1 Duel daggers equipped with "Fortrestra" assault shrouds, and in the clearing below, were several TFA-2 ZuOOTs advancing towards the plateau, their red armour having been hastily repainted a light tan colour, the dual cannon fixed to the left arm of on Strafing ZuOOT unleashing shell after shell at the duel daggers, unfortunately for "Fortrestra" armour was proof against the shell strikes, as one ZuOOT ran forward towards the Plateau it was knocked off it's feet and flung to the right by some invisible force, as it landed the suit exploded, bringing up a cloud of dust and smoke, the source of the suits destruction being from another plateau 3km away where 4 Doppelhorn Dagger L's stood providing artillery support, a unit of Launcher Daggers standing next to them to guard the Dagger L's.

One of the Dagger L's fired it's Dual cannon again, striking and destroying another ZuOOT, the unit next to it advancing through the smoke into a hail of beam rifle fire, ignoring the shots the ZuOOT's pilot turned right and fired off a round from it's arm cannon at three Duel Daggers advancing towards it, only to be destroyed by two shots fired from the lead Duel Daggers shoulder cannon.  
"We've beaten 30 percent of the enemy's forces. At this rate they'll be wiped out in no time!" the unit leader told his subordinates cheerfully.  
"Captain, emergency transmission from base." Informed the unit to his right.  
"What is it?" He responded.  
"It seems Celestial Being is coming." The pilot said back  
"I see. So they're coming here." The unit leader said to himself. "Notify the other squads!" he told the unit to his right as they continued their advance, another ZuOOT exploding in the wake of their onslaught.

--

The Gundams continued their course for Ceylon Island, the 4 units flying a diamond formation, with Lockon giving the other meisters a last minute briefing before they headed into battle.  
"All units follow Sumeragi Lee Noriega's predicted course of action. Results of some sort are expected from this battle, so best of luck to everyone." He encouraged them  
"Of some sort, huh?" Allelujah asked Cynically.  
"Let me do my job thoroughly." Tieria replied.  
"Do what you want." Lockon Responded, before noticing that Exia's pilot had yet to say anything. "Hey, are you listening, Setsuna? Respond." No response "Setsuna? Setsuna!" again Setsuna remained silent, worrying the older Gundam Meister.  
Inside Exia's cockpit. Setsuna had his eyes fixed on a zoomed-in image of the battle they were to intervene on, he could see three Duel Daggers firing on an immobile ZuOOT relentlessly, the suit eventually exploding after being riddled with holes, his mind flashed back to when he was a child, running through the war torn streets of his home village, a GINN had spotted him and was moving into position to fire it's machine gun, before having a hole basted in it from above, and he looked up to see IT, the mobile suit that had saved him, immersed in green light.  
"Setsuna. Respond, Setsuna." Lockons voice brought him out of his thoughts.  
"The Gundam." He responded.  
"Uh, what did you say?" Lockon asked, confused.  
"I'm the Gundam." Setsuna said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.  
"What are you talking about?" Lockon asked again, only to see Exia Break formation, accelerating forwards in the direction of the battlefield.  
"H-H-Hey Setsuna!" Lockon called out, at a loss to figure what was going on inside Setsuna's head.  
"I'll leave protecting the child to you." Allelujah said before breaking formation. Lockon letting out an undignified 'Huh?' in response.  
"Entering battle operations." Replied Tieria before following suit, pulling away from Dynames, leaving Lockon confused and angry.  
"Hey! You two!" he yelled at them getting no response.  
"Bad luck! Bad luck!" Haro chirped at him.  
"I know." Lockon said half-heartedly before regaining focus. "I'll concentrate on the attack. I'm entrusting the dodging to you Haro!"

Another ZuOOT was disabled, a shot from a beam rifle tearing it's left leg off, a Duel Dagger ran towards the fallen suit, a beam saber in it's hand, before it could strike a beam shot cam out of nowhere, ripping the mobile suits arm off at the elbow, everyone looked in the direction the shot came from, to see Exia in the air, descending as it came in to land.  
"They're here…Celestial Being." The unit leader said, his voice dripping with scorn. The white and blue mobile suit landed softly, the massive blade on its sword/rifle locking into position.  
"Exia, conflict confirmed. Eradicating." Stated Setsuna, Exia flew forwards towards the enemy formation, zooming around one Duel Dagger before slicing it in half at the waist from behind, it them flew high in the air before landing on the second Duel Dagger, disabling it with the force of the impact, it jumped off to land in front of the third slicing the Duel Daggers arm off as it brought its beam rifle to bear, the pilot swung its remaining fist at the Gundam, only for it to dodge and fly past, slicing it in half as it passed by, the Duel Daggers Fortrestra shrouds were now little but a hindrance, although they were useful against conventional weaponry, they limited the suits movement somewhat, and were useless in protecting the suits from the Gundam's attacks, as Exia landed, the pilot heard the whistle of incoming shells, it brought the shield fixed to its left arm up, dull thuds ringing from it as Eixa was pushed back from the force of the impact, 3 km's away the pilot of the attacking Dagger L waited for the cloud of smoke to disperse.  
"Did I get him?" he asked himself, eager to inspect his kill. To his dismay when the smoke cleared he saw that the Gundam was unharmed, without even a mark on the shield to signify it had been struck.  
"I-It's unharmed?!" he exclaimed. "How is that possi…ARGH!" his suit exploded before he could finish his sentence, the two Dagger L's next to his were struck and destroyed, above them hovered Dynames, it's sniper rifle at the ready.  
"Dynames, sniping the targets!" announced Lockon, the Launcher Daggers opened fire with their shoulder mounted Vulcan guns, as the one Dagger L they had left tried to move. Dynames dodged the rain of bullets easily, first shooting the slow moving Dagger L before destroying the Launcher Daggers.  
"Annihilated! Annihilated!" Informed Haro, Lockon surveyed the battlefield, noting how Setsuna recklessly cut a swathe through the enemy forces.  
"You overexerting yourself Setsuna." He told himself before flying in to assist.

Elsewhere Kyrios was flying towards an Atlantic federation occupied airbase, a loud air raid siren could be heard coming from the base as soldiers rushed to get missile trucks and linear tanks out of their hangars.  
"Kyrios, bombing the target." Announced Allelujah, unleashing the payload of missiles from the black container attached to kyrios. The missiles found their mark on the base and exploded, those that weren't killed in the blast ran around engulfed in flames.  
"I've killed so many…" He said to himself. "Because of this I've become but a mass murderer…However!" Kyrios doubled back and dropped its container, sweeping low amongst the trees, as it immerged, it had changed from its plane form to a Mobile suit.  
"It transformed?!" exclaimed one the soldiers as he fired his assault rifle, before taking cover as the Dagger L behind him was destroyed. Kyrios dodged the shots from another Dagger L before firing its beam sub-machine gun, the Dagger L slumped before exploding.  
"Such is Celestial Being!" he said with determination, on the opposite side of the Island, Virtue stood on a beach, tracking a Spengler class carrier with its GN Bazooka, on the Carrier stood two Dagger L's with Mk39 low-recoil cannons, pounding Virtue with shot after shot hoping to destroy it, without success.  
"Virtue, target seized. Beginning removal procedure." Tieria said, making it sound like a surgical operation, the Bazooka began to charge up, Virtue ignoring the shots that slammed against it like they were flies, a few seconds later, a tremendous blast erupted from Virtue's bazooka, vaporizing both Dagger L's and splitting the carrier in half, Tieria watching impassively as the two halves quickly sunk into the ocean.

The battle was over as soon as it began, Eixa was standing alone amidst the strewn wreckage, the mobile suits it encountered now reduced to shrapnel.  
"Retreat! Retreat!." Bellowed the pilot of one of two remaining Duel Daggers before it ran off, his partner close behind, Exia watched them fall back but did nothing.  
"That's fine, It's over. Setsuna." Lockon told the other meister letting out a sigh of relief, Dynames hovering over the battle field watching Exia.  
"Thanks for the help!" An unknown voice boomed on the radio. "Our enemies are down. Now let me pay back the debt." Lockon looked down to see two ZuOOTs charging towards the retreating Duel Daggers, Exia right in their path.  
"You idiots!" Lockon exclaimed, reaching for Dynames sniper rifle, but as much as he wanted to he couldn't fire while Setsuna was in the way, as good as he was at sniping, Lockon didn't want to risk a friendly fire incident, so he was forced to watch helplessly as the two suits continued their charge, just as they barreled past Exia, it spun around in a circle, its right arm out stretched, slicing both suits in half simultaneously, the ZuOOTs crashed to the ground before exploding.  
"This is the Gundam Meister." Stated Setsuna.

--

"You asked to see us Chairman?" Yzak asked in a formal tone, while taking in the surroundings on the penthouse room, it had all the luxuries one would expect in such a room, plus a few extras.  
"Please, please, no need for the formalities, Durandal or Gilbert is just fine." The Chairman told them. "I trust the pilot in the ZAKU is recovering well?" Yzak stiffened at the mention of Dearka.  
"He is, and as his Commanding officer I take full responsibility for his actions yesterday."  
"No need to do that, he's only human and sometimes people make mistakes." Gilbert said. "He is mostly unharmed and that is what matters. One of the good things about mass produced machinery is that if one part is damaged it can be repaired, or replaced entirely if the machine in question has a modular construction, the same cannot be said for human beings."  
"Mr. Durandal, The matter you wished to speak with us about?" Shiho cut in, noticing how uncomfortable Yzak was getting at the mention of people making mistakes.  
"Of course Major Hahnenfuss, my apologies for getting sidetracked." Durandal replied. " As you know, tensions have been rising somewhat these past few months, with the delays in the 'New Millennium Series.' And the increased frequency of Terrorist attacks on the orbital elevators, for some time I've been working on the foundations of a special unit to deal with these threats as well as others with the utmost of discretion and precision." Durandal paused to let what he said sink in.  
"this unit, known as the Fast Acting Integrate Tactical Headquarters a.k.a. FAITH, will comprise of the best ZAFT has to offer and will only be answerable to me."  
"That's very interesting sir, but I don't see how this affects us." Yzak commented, gesturing to Shiho and himself. Durandal smiled at this.  
" Of course, well the reason it affects you is because I wish to have you two and Lieutenant Elmsman become part of FAITH, you are all very experienced and according to your records, highly skilled in battle, and judging from your account specifically Commander Joule you are a very gifted Commander with a knack for providing strategies in an instant, something which will benefit FAITH and could be put to more effective use in the unit as well, the choice however is entirely up to you, should you accept, you, Major Hahnenfuss, Lieutenant Elmsman, and 2nd Lieutenant Za Burrel here are be assigned to the _Minerva_, which will serve as FAITH's base of operations and flagship, and before you ask the _Rousseau_ and _Voltaire_ will still remain under your jurisdiction." Durandal remained silent whilst the two ZAFT officers thought about the offer that was made to them, weighing the pros and cons of the decision, 5 minutes into their musing the phone rang, immediately Rey moved over and answered it, Yzak eyed him from his chair, careful not let his suspicion show, there was something he didn't like or trust about the blonde redcoat, something about him reminded Yzak of his former commander, the infamous Rau Le Creuset, he quickly averted hi eyes when the phone as put back down and Rey approached Durandal  
"Celestial Being has appeared." He stated, Durandal nodded, signifying he could continue. "They showed up in former Sri Lanka, an armed intervention of an internal conflict…they attacked both sides." If the rooms other occupants were shocked they didn't show it, after a slight pause Yzak and Shiho conversed with each other before Yzak turned to face Durandal.  
"…We accept."

"Attacked both sides?!" Athrun exclaimed after hearing the news, Cagalli just sat there with a frown.  
"If they did that, then wouldn't that only make things worse for both sides." She stated. "What in the world are Celestial Being thinking?"

Word of Celestial Beings intervention spread like wildfire, in an hour after it occurred, there was no one who hadn't heard of the Ceylon Island intervention, back at her mansion, Wang Liu Mei was watching a panel debate regarding Celestial Beings actions on her TV, calmly sipping a cup of tea in the process.  
"It's just ridiculous…Do they really think they can put an end to a 300-year ethnic conflict with a single armed intervention?" inquired one of the panelists, she turned the TV off.  
_It won't be just once. _She thought. _We will have many interventions. Until the end of conflict….Until the hatred is directed towards us…That. is Celestial Being. We are the pain that follows after when change occurs._

In the afternoon sunset above the Indian Ocean, three of the four Gundams made their way back to their hiding places.  
"Where's the Exia?" asked Allelujah. "Don't tell me it got defeated."  
"Setsuna went on ahead." Replied Lockon. "It's our first armed intervention, so I bet he has a lot to think about."  
"I don't understand." Said Tieria. "Why is he a Gundam Meister?"

Several hundred kilometers ahead of the other Gundams, Exia flew alone, Setsuna had his helmet visor up, silent in contemplation of the previous battle, a warning sound from the cockpit coupled with a popup brought him out of his thoughts and he looked at the screen.  
_An ORB union transport? Why would one be all the way out here? _He thought, sliding down his visor, the warning sound beeped again, this time an object resembling a jet was depicted, _Murasame?!_

The Yellow and Red Murasame Swept down low from a high altitude as it began its intercept course towards Exia, Setsuna readied the Sword/rifle and charged in, in response the Murasame transformed from plane to mobile suit mode and drew it's beam sabre before charging as well, the two suits locking blades.  
"Nice to meet you. Gundam!" A cheery voice exclaimed at Setsuna.  
"Who are you?!" he snapped back.  
"Andrew Waltfeld. The man who's dying to know more about you!"


	7. Chapter 7

I don't own Gundam or any of the spin-offs, If I did I'd be rolling in the cash

Btw, the ZuOOT and Duel Dagger are actual mobile suits in the C.E timeline,  
**mechapunk87**: I aim to have each chapter at the 2k-3k word mark, but I'll endeavour to try and make them longer.

--

Chapter 7

"Oh come on, this is just like when I first saw you." Waltfeld remarked, staring at Exia's head as the two machines clashed against each other.  
"You're not going to end this fated battle without returning my sentimentalities. Or perhaps you thought I hadn't noticed that light that's streaming out of you? Wrong!" the Murasame's boosters flared up, forcing Exia back, Setsuna pushed back against the Murasame in response, eventually knocking the beam sabre out of the Murasame's hand, forcing Waltfeld to retreat.

"Ah, I hadn't expected that!" he exclaimed, his face going from shocked to a smirk as Exia charged forward, it's right arm raised high. "But you're not going to catch me with that big clumsy blade!" the Mura same veered to the right as Exia swung it's arm down, the blade sailing past the other suit harmlessly.  
_I missed?_ Setsuna thought, turning around to see that the Murasame was onto him again, descending from his upper left.  
"I admire your strength…you remind me of someone I met during the first war." Waltfeld told him, before grabbing hold of Exia's left shoulder. "So I'm going to take you back in one piece!"

"Get your hands…off of me!" yelled Setsuna, pushing the Murasame away, Waltfeld grabbed his suit's beam rifle and started firing, Eixa dodged the incoming shots, weaving left and right as it advanced forward, folding it's sword rifle up and ditching it's shield before drawing one of it's beam sabres with it's left hand, and charged forward again, cutting the beam rifle in half with an upward slash, seeing that he had pushed his luck, Waltfeld disengaged from the fight, transforming his suit back into a jet before speeding off back towards the transport.

"My, my, you're such an unpredictable character." Athrun said sarcastically to Waltfled following his return to the transport.  
"I lost both my rifle and sabre, I'll have to send in an explanatory report." Waltfeld lamented.  
"You won't have to worry about that. Considering the data we've obtained on the Gundam during the fight, even losing the Murasame would've been a good trade. Erica Simmons may even be able to find some clues from the paint that you scraped off during contact." Athrun said.  
"Besides all that, Celestial Beings pilot sure was young." Waltfeld remarked.  
"You talked to him?" Athrun asked.  
"Of course not. I could read his feelings from the way he moved his mobile suit. It was a lot like the way that youngster Kira piloted when I first met him." Waltfeld told him, Athrun looked at him before his expression softened slightly, a dial tone from the intercom got their attention.  
"We've lost the Gundam." The pilot informed them.  
"That's a shame." Waltfeld replied.

Elsewhere, the Gundam Exia continued its leisurely path back to its rendezvous point, Setsuna thinking about his encounter.  
_A solo sortie…who the hell was in that Murasame?_

--

"So? Did you find it?" asked a woman with shoulder length brown hair, staring at the computer screen over a red haired man's shoulder.  
"Yep, right here, miss Murrue." he replied, bringing up the window with the relevant information, along with a picture of the old man that appeared in Celestial Being's declaration.  
"Aha! I knew it. Aeolia Schenberg!" Murrue exclaimed, the red haired man scratched his head in confusion.  
"But hasn't he been dead for 200 years?" he asked, Murrue just glanced at him.  
"The man in that photo and the one in Celestial Being's video are exactly the same. Who else could it be DaCosta?" Murrue asked back, after a few moments of silence DaCosta just leant back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, sighing in defeat.  
"Aeolia Schenberg." Murrue said, reading the man's profile out loud. "An exceptional master of inventions who appeared in the second half of the 21st century. Advocate of the founding theory of solar power…disappeared and presumed deceased sometime before the 'Reconstruction war'." Murrue straightened herself, taking a sip from a coffee cup she had with her. _Not showing himself to the public, only his name has been carried through the generations. If this individual founded Celestial Being, they'd have it all. The capability as well as funds…_ she thought, her eyes still glued to the computer screen. _But why have they waited 200 years to make their move?_

Elsewhere, at the Seiran estate. Research was also being conducted on Celestial Being's founding member.  
"Aeolia Schenberg's bloodline came to an end at his generation." A man in a suit informed Unato.  
"What about the whereabouts of his assets?" he asked in return.  
"The records at that time leave no indication…" The man stated.

"He probably prepared for all this." Unato mused. "Security in the 21st century was almost nonexistent, especially during the 'Reconstruction war'." The man nodded in agreement before leaving, Yuna entering the a few moments later.  
"Aren't they cautious…Celestial Being?" Yuna said with a grin on his face before sitting down in one of the chairs in front of his fathers desk.  
"Father, do you believe they will continue with their armed interventions?" Unato turned around and sat down in his own chair.  
"I would if I were them." He replied. "Prepare the data for the report to parliament…And make up some excuse too."

--

The ground terminal of the Atlantic federation orbital elevator was bustling with activity, not to say that it wasn't a common occurrence, every day, thousands of people and supplies were ferried to and from the terminal to the station at the top of the elevator, and from there they went to either Copernicus city or the Daedalus and Arzachel lunar bases.  
"Attention patrons. Passengers departing on Pillar of Heaven Travel Bureau Train E273, please board at gate A12." Announced a female staff member over the terminal's PA system as Setsuna strolled through the entrance, making his way over to where three individuals were gathered around a small table near the terminals café, one of them, a young man with long brown hair and green eyes looked up as if sensing his approach.  
"Yo. You're late. You rascal." He said playfully.  
"We thought you died." The man next to him added, not bothering to turn and face the new arrival.  
"Did something happen?" the third asked, looking at Setsuna with one silver eye.  
"I was logging a report on Veda." Setsuna said in a hushed tone.  
"I will look over it later." The second man responded.  
"Well, at least all of us made it out safely." Lockon said cheerfully, in an effort to dispel the tension hanging around, before turning to look at the second man  
"Tieria. We'll leave space to you. We'll head out for the next mission." Tieria pulled out his passport.  
"I'll obey orders. Although I'm anxious…" he replied, his red eyes aimed at Setsuna with a vague look of contempt, at that moment a waiter came up to them.  
"Thank you for waiting. Enjoy your drinks." The waiter said before leaving.  
"Milk…" was all Setsuna said as he stared at the glass in front of him, before looking at Lockon.  
"It's on me." Lockon told him in response.  
"But is it really possible…to return a suit to space with the orbital elevator?" Allelujah asked, as he watched Tieria make his way to the elevator train.  
"It's nothing to worry about." Lockon assured him. "As planned, we'll hide it with the materials they're using to maintain the lunar colonies. Especially here."  
"A true blind spot." Allelujah noted. "If we have a weak point, is that, without the Gundams, the operational time of the _Ptolemaios_ would be extremely limited. Our mere four solar furnac-" Setsuna grabbed Allelujahs' shoulder.  
"Don't discuss confidential information." He reprimanded.  
"Sorry." Allelujah replied, the PA chime signaling a train departure got Lockon's attention.  
"Tieria's train is departing." He informed them.  
"Pillar of Heaven Travel Bureau train E277 is departing as scheduled at 14:18, 5:32 GMT." Came the announcement a second later.  
_A linear rail into space._ Thought Setsuna.

Inside on the train's passenger cars, Tieria sat on his own, his chin propped up on his right arm, keeping some of his purple hair away from his face.  
_I can finally return, I hate being on the ground._ He thought.

"Should we go back now?" Lockon asked the others as they left via the terminal entrance, stretching his arms above his head as he yawned.  
"I'd like a day off at least." Allelujah replied.  
"You have to hammer the iron while it's still red-hot. If we do it just once or twice, the world won't acknowledge us." He admonished, as the three walked off, a Grey haired Atlantic federation officer left the terminal through an entrance to the left of theirs, stopping in front an assemble of saluting Federation officers.  
"We've been expecting you Lieutenant Colonel Sven Cal Bayan. How was space?" said the lead officer in the group, Sven saluted in response.  
"I prefer it down here, especially the gravity." He replied.  
"That's good to hear," said the lead officer. "The commander is waiting. Please…" The officer approached only to have Sven hold his hand up, signaling him to stop.  
"Before that, I'd like to drop by Ceylon." He informed them.  
"But if you do that.." the officer began, again he was silenced by Sven  
"I'm a man who won't believe anything until he sees it with his own eyes. The commander will understand." He responded smoothly.  
"Yes sir!" the officer replied, saluting him again. "We will accompany you!"

Back at ORB, the transport carrying Athrun, Cagalli, and Andrew had landed, almost immediately afterwards Athrun and Andrew had headed to Leondir Kisaka to report on the events that transpired at Carpentaria and Andrews fight with the Gundam.  
"You were supposed to inspect ZAFT's new model. But it has turned into quite a mess." Kisaka summarized.  
"I never imagined that such a suit existed." Waltfeld said in response. "I think it's worth researching."  
"It seems the higher-ups agree." Kisaka told them. Opening his desk drawer to pull out two folders. "The two of you who witnessed the Gundams have been reassigned." Athrun and Waltfeld looked over the folders.  
"The Anti-Gundam Investigation Unit…?" Athrun inquired. Reading through the documents contents.  
"It's a newly established unit." Kisaka informed them. "Headquarters will probably give it an official name later."  
"Erica Simmons…the chief engineer will be in charge?" Athrun asked.  
"That's how much importance the higher-ups place on this. I expect fast results." Kisaka explained.  
"Yes sir!" the two responded, saluting as they did so. "Lieutenant Commander Andrew Waltfeld and Lieutenant Athrun Zala have acknowledged their reassignment to the Anti-Gundam Investigation Unit." Waltfeld continued.

They left Kisakas office, heading to Erica Simmon's lab to review the data collected by the Murasame's sortie against the Gundam.  
"I'm surprised." Athrun remarked. "Did you know this would happen?"  
"I'm not that omnipotent." Waltfeld replied. "Although I did feel a sense of fate." As they reached an intersection they ran into Cagalli.  
"Athrun, just the person I was looking for." She said "Could you please come with me for a few seconds?"  
"He's all yours." Waltfeld replied before continuing without Athrun.  
"Cagalli, I know your probably not happy about me being reassigned but-" Athrun began but Cagalli cut him off.  
"That's not what I wanted to talk about Athrun, besides, I'm the one who recommended you for the task." Athrun let a slight sigh of relief.  
"Listen, Athrun, I need you to go to the Marshal Islands." Athrun visibly deflated, knowing where this conversation was going.  
"you can't be serious." He started  
"I wouldn't be asking you this if I wasn't" she told him.  
"Hasn't he suffered enough?" he said, more of a statement than a question. "That's the whole reason he's on that Island in the first place."  
"you think I don't know that, I don't want to do this Athrun." Cagalli snapped back.  
"He's your brother for Christ sake!" Athrun nearly yelled.  
"I know! That's what makes this all the more difficult for me to ask!"  
"Then why are you asking this of me?" Athrun exclaimed, he was nearly at his whit's end.  
"I fear for him Athrun! things have been getting tense recently, and you know as well as I do it's only a matter of time before Blue Cosmos finds him, the fact that he has PTSD makes him even more vulnerable, if he is here in ORB at least he'll be safe." Cagalli was on the verge of tears.  
"…Ok." Athrun relented. "You're only bringing him here so that he is safe, no piloting."  
"No piloting." Cagalli assured him.  
"We're gonna have to bring Lacus and Reverend Malchio as well." Athrun pointed out.  
"I know, I just want him to be safe." Cagalli stepped back a bit and composed herself.  
"So when do I leave?" Asked Athrun.  
"After your meeting with Erica Simmons." Cagalli told him before walking away. Athrun shook his head before walking off in the direction Waltfeld headed in.

Elsewhere, in a restaurant on the top floor of one of ORB's most prestigious hotels, Wang Liu Mei sat at one of the tables alone, her long hair flowing over her shoulders, as she sipped from a glass a man with long straight brown hair and reddish eyes approached.  
"A Soft drink?" he asked, whilst sitting down in the chair opposite Liu Mei. "I recommend the original cocktail here."  
"I'm still a minor." She reminded him.  
"Oh. My apologies." He replied as a waiter approached him. "The usual." The Waiter bowed and walked away.  
"The third mission will commence shortly." Liu Mei told the man "If you would like to observe it, I recommend preparing 3 monitors."  
"Oh, I look forward to that." he responded. "I'll be sure to observe it closely."  
On the other side of the room, Liu Mei's aide and bodyguard, Hong Long was sitting at the bar, observing as she conversed with the man that had approached her, whilst she appeared to trust this person, Hong Long still wasn't taking anything for granted.  
"Eavesdropping?" someone to his left inquired, he turned his head to see a woman smiling at him, a woman who, gender aside, looked nearly as identical as the man that was talking to Liu Mei.

--

The _Minerva_ was quite an impressive site, Yzak had to admit, as he, Shiho, and Dearka watched the giant vessel descend in to land, banking gracefully in the sky like a swan, the ship touched down on the water, throwing up waves in the process, it slowly made it's way to the dock before coming to a halt, in which the gangplanks were quickly placed at the entrances, one by one the crew of the giant ship filed out, and stood to attention in a line in front of the three, with the captain of the ship coming out last.  
"Commander Joule." The captain, said, saluting in the process, the other officers followed suit.  
"Captain Gladys." Yzak said in response, with he and his entourage saluting in return.  
"I, Captain Talia Gladys of ZAFT, Acknowledge Commander Yzak Joule as the commanding officer." The captain replied smoothly, Yzak nodded.  
"Very well." He said before turning to the rest of the crew. "You have 4 hours of recreational time before you are to report back here at 18:45 hrs, I will address you in proper at that time, until then, make the best use of the free time you've been given." The crew saluted and at the captains word, were dismissed, as Yzak, his entourage and Talia began discussing their mission, Rey Za Burrel showed up.  
"You're late." Yzak stated, disdain evident in his voice. "Tardiness won't be tolerated in the future." Rey saluted and bowed his head.  
"My apologies, I had some business to attend to, it won't happen again."  
"In any case. Should we discuss matter regarding our mission in my quarters?" Offered the captain. Yzak nodded, and the 5 officers made their way inside the giant warship.


	8. Chapter 8

sorry for the long wait,

anyhoo, don't own gundam, etc  
--

Chapter 8

April 3, Atlantic federation garrison, Ceylon island, Southern India

Despite suffering heavy damage yesterday, the garrison on Ceylon Island was still operational, at the time Sven and his entourage arrived the research division dispatched to the garrison had been analyzing the recovered container that the Gundam Kyrios used to bomb them.

"This is it, Lieutenant Colonel." The lead officer of his entourage told him as he stood at the hanger entrance.  
"Oh, this?" he asked, staring at the giant black object "Have you discovered anything about it?"

"Yes." The officer replied, before calling over one of the research personnel looking over it. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Sven. An explanation, if you would."

"Yes sir!" The other man responded before gesturing to the container.  
"This is an optional ordinance module for a mobile suit. It's made out of E-carbon. It's made out of the most up-to-date material. But, in terms of design, we can't find any new technology being used."  
"What about the missiles that were in it?" Sven asked.

"Yes, sir." The man replied. "After investigating the residue, the missiles were found to be 300kg guided types. Incidentally, no nation or arms manufacturer is developing this type."  
"I see." Sven muttered, deep in thought. "You said before that the container was made out of E-carbon, that's a PLANT technology correct?"  
"Yes sir, it's an artificial allotrope of carbon steel, the PLANTs created the material out of necessity due to the lack of usable Iron Ore in space, it was also used extensively on the Orbital elevator system during it's construction." The man automatically replied.  
"Is it possible to make a mobile suit out of the material?" Sven inquired.  
"Technically Sir, no. Although the material is prefect for large, solid structures such as space colonies, they found it was expensive and impractical to make a mobile suit frame of out it, and the metal itself was inherently weak against bullet strikes and therefore unsuitable for armour plating." The man stated. "However, the is one difference in the E-carbon on the container compared to the usual PLANT grade E-carbon, it's 25 percent lighter than normal, and 60 percent more durable and resistant to damage, see those dents in the panels? Those were from the armour piercing shells of the Launcher striker packs' 120mm Vulcan gun, normal E-carbon would have been shredded, whoever made this used a completely new Fabrication process from the PLANTs to create E-carbon that's both usable as armour plating and much lighter."  
"Interesting." Sven replied. "So they really did develop this on their own…what do the after action reports contain?"  
"For the most part they contain soldiers eyewitness accounts of light coming from the Gundams." One the garrison officers responded  
"Light?" Sven said, puzzled.  
"Yes, they say the Gundam suit emits what appear to be particles of light. We theorize that those particles are the cause of the radar and sensor interference." The officer explained.  
"An acceptable explanation." Sven mused.  
"That reminds me, the higher ups in the intelligence division identified the man who appearing Celestial Beings broadcast, his name is Aeolia Schenberg." The lead officer of Sven's entourage chimed in.  
"I know that name." Sven responded. "He was an advocate of the solar power system."  
"Secret intelligence seems to be chasing down the Gundams from that line of thought." Replied the garrison officer.  
"I doubt anything will come out of it." Sven told them, his eyes never gazing away from the container. "The same with these parts. They only threw away the parts they don't mind us seeing." A yell from a soldier running towards the hanger caught his attention.

"Sir! The Gundams have appeared!" the soldier stated.  
"Where?" Sven inquired, the man saluted before continuing.  
"Yes sir! They appeared in two locations." This took the other officers by surprise  
"A battle along multiple fronts, eh?" Growled Sven. "where are they headed?"  
"One is already in South Africa, and one is en route to South America, also, A third one is heading back here."  
"Here?" Sven replied calmly.  
"Yes sir, at the seventh garrison." The soldier said, Sven remained silent for bit before turning to the garrison officer.

"do you have a useable mobile suit?" he asked.  
"There's one of the new Windams that we received last week for trials." The officer replied  
"Prep it for launch, I'll head out in that."  
"B-by yourself Lieutenant Colonel?" stammered the lead officer of his entourage.  
"I've said it before, I only believe things I see with my own eyes." Sven reminded him.

--

"Judging from the suit fuselage, the Gundam's output is 6 times greater than the Murasame's." Athrun stated, looking over Murrue Ramius' shoulder at the data gathered by the Murasame's black box flight recorder. "I wonder what kind of motor it uses…"

"The power output is impressive, but the maneuverability is even more so." Waltfeld mused.  
"I confirmed it with the battle data." Murrue replied. "As expected, the explanation behind its maneuverability lies with those particles the Gundam emits. They also interfere with radar and sensor operation, much like n-jammers did. Those special particles, besides their stealth features, are also used for controlling the suit."  
"They're likely to be applied to weapons and defence too." Came the reply of a new arrival. All three turned around to see who had spoken.

"Erica Simmons." They said out loud.  
"That's my name, don't wear it out." She replied jokingly "Anyway, come with me, I have some interesting stuff to show you regarding the Gundam." She told them before walking off, the three following close behind, after a few minutes of walking they arrived in one of the research labs.

"So what is it you've found out?" Waltfeld asked, Erica just smiled.  
"Hold your horses, I'm getting to that, I'll explain whilst we watch the footage from the Murasame's main camera, it'll make things much simpler." With that she pressed a button on a console, the large screen they were looking at came to life, displaying the Gundam from the perspective of the Murasame's head.

"Note the fluidity that the Gundam's limbs move with, that would be impossible to achieve with even the most state of the art hydraulics, my guess is it has something to do with those exposed steel tension belts on it's limbs, the current hypothesis is that they function like both tendons and muscles on the human body, with the particles produced by the Gundam being fed through them to produce the desired result."  
"But if that is the case, why are they exposed? Wouldn't that make them more susceptible to damage?" Murrue asked.  
"Good question, which brings me to my next point, these suits are not protected by phase shift armour, what they have is something far different. Watch closely." Erica paused the footage at the moment when the Murasame grabbed the Gundam, and zoomed in on the finger tips, what they saw was strange rippling effect on the Gundam's shoulder.  
"See how the panel was not dented by the impact? As far as I can tell, the entire surface of the Gundam is coated with those particles it produces, in the even of a strike, they behave like chainmail, spreading the kinetic force of the impact over the entire surface area, hence why all it came away with was some scratches on the paint work, I'm certain that even if you hit it with a beam rifle, the worst it would suffer is some light scorching."  
"So that explains why those belts aren't covered, cos they are already protected by the particles so there's no need to cover them up." Athrun summarized.  
"A mobile suit that is immune to beam rifle fire…that would make it more powerful then the freedom…" Waltfeld mused  
"Not quite, but in any case, if you want to be able to fight one we're going to have to do some modifications to your Murasame." Erica stated.  
"What makes you think I want to fight it?" Waltfeld said, chuckling slightly.  
"It's written all over your face." Replied Athrun, smirking at the look of defeat on Waltfeld's face.  
"Okay, you got me." Waltfeld sighed. "Anyhoo, don't you have somewhere to be? Mr Athrun Zala? A special task that Miss Cagalli asked you to perform?" he laughed softly at Athrun's shocked face, amused at how he turned the tables on him so easily.

--

Elsewhere, at an open pit mine in South Africa, a one-sided battle, if you could call it that, was taking place, the muzzle flashes of automatic weapons lighting up the night sky.  
On one side, were 2 dozen 8-wheeler gatling trucks siting inside the trenches of the mine, firing upwards with their 45mm gatling guns, on the other, was the Gundam Dynames, standing at the edge of the pit, firing loosely aimed shots from a beam pistol.

"I don't really like doing this." Lockon told Haro sadly. "It looks as if I'm just bullying the weak." Another gatling truck was disabled in 2 hits. "Hurry up and disarm yourselves!" the Gundam's standard targeting crosshairs zoomed over a fresh target. "or I'll really take you out." Several shots later the truck operators seemed to get the hint, they ceased firing and drove off, scattering in all directions.  
"They ran! They ran!" Chirped Haro.  
"Smart move." Lockon sighed.  
"Good! Good!" Haro beeped in agreement.

In South America, the Gundam Kyrios was holding a flight pattern over a field in Colombia.  
"30 minutes have passed since I entered the holding pattern. Warning complete. Kyrios, commencing the operation now." Stated Allelujah, seconds later, two doors on the underside of the flight container swung open, each time Kyrios flew over a field of cocaine plants, a salvo of 2 napalm bombs were dropped, incinerating the plants, soon all the fields ere engulfed in flames.  
"97 percent on target. Mission complete. If it's something like this, I'll do it anytime."  
"Kyrios, new mission objective, re-route to heading 265 and await further orders." The pink haired operator informed him suddenly.  
"Strike while iron is red-hot you say Lockon?" Allelujah said to himself sarcastically before altering course for the new heading.

Back at Ceylon Island, Exia was on the warpath, slicing through another Dagger during its attack on the 7th garrison.  
"That's the third unit he's taken down! Are you some kind of monster Gundam?" Exclaimed one of the other Dagger pilots, the Exia straightened from it's crouched stance.  
"Exia, continuing intervention. Eliminating the target." Setsuna said calmly, as the GN drive powered up the Gundam lifted off the ground and charged at the two remaining Daggers.  
"Fire! Fire!" yelled the Dagger pilot franticly as the two suits opened fire with their machine guns, to their dismay any shots that did hit the weaving Gundam were blocked by its shield, it spun in a wide circle and closed in, cutting the lead Dagger in half at the waist with a backhand swing of its sword rifle.  
"It's fast!" exclaimed the other pilot, he tried to shoot it at point blank range, the Exia leaned to one side as the heavy caliber bullet whizzed past its head, before spinning on the spot, again tearing the Dagger in half at the waist just below the cockpit.

"First phase complet-" a warning sound interrupted Setsuna, he looked down on the display, two missiles hit the ground behind Exia before it leapt out of the way, narrowly dodging the second pair of missiles aimed at it, a mobile suit equipped with a Jet striker flew by after Exia leapt clear, coasting low through the smoke. _Reinforcements?_ Setsuna thought to himself. the enemy suit raised its altitude as it circled slowly, turning to face the Exia.  
"So, that's a Gundam…?" Sven mused, the suit slowed down as it descended to the ground, Exia readied its sword rifle while Setsuna took in the enemy suits appearance. _A Windam? Must be here for combat trials._ Thought Setsuna, as it landed, the Windam jettisoned the two drop tanks fitted to the Jet strikers wings, then dropped its shield and threw away its beam rifle before drawing one of its two beam sabres with its right arm. _He threw away his gun? Is he testing me?_ Setsuna wondered.  
"The power to end war, and your determination to eradicate war, show it to me!" Sven growled, the Jet strikers engines fired up as the Windam sped forward, the Exia braced itself as the Windam got closer, before ducking and lunging forward, slicing the Windam's right arm off.  
"You can keep that arm, but lets see how well you do in the dark!" as the Exia turned around, the Windam grabbed Exia's head, before lifting it off the ground, the neck join strained under the weight that was pulling on it, with his vision blocked, Setsuna tried to cut through the other arm, but lack of vision and the angle the sword rifle was at made it impossible.  
"this head…is mine, I'll rip it off!" Sven yelled. Warning sounds were blaring in Exia's cockpit as the strain on the neck join was getting to be too much.  
"you think I'll let you?!" Setsuna bellowed back, he ejected the shield from the left arm and grabbed his own beam sabre, as it ignited he swung upwards, tearing through the Windam's other arm above the elbow, Sven tried to maneuver the Windam back but Exia was already on him, cutting through the Windam again at an oblique arc, taking off the remained of the Windam's right arm and one of it's legs, as the wrecked suit fell to the ground, Exia grabbed the arm grasping its face and pulled it off.  
"Don't touch me." Setsuna growled sternly.

Up in space, a large cylindrical container floated away from the Atlantic Federations orbital elevator, once it was some considerable distance away two doors on the container opened up, and a large black and white mobile suit floated out of it, the Gundam Virtue re-orientated itself and coasted off into the void.  
"Reaching rendezvous point. "Tieria stated. in a few minutes it reached its destination, the _Ptolemaios.  
_"We have visual confirmation of Virtue. Initiating landing preparations." Said the brunette. "Activating relative guidance system." Replied the pink haired operator. the cargo container on top of the _Ptolemaios_ opened up and activated 2 guidance lasers. "Container open."  
"Linking system functional. Virtue, docking." Tieria responded. As Virtue got closer to the container it rolled so that it's back was facing the base of the container, and slowly coasted in, once it was inside, the Virtue docked with two massive clamps that locked onto its shoulders, a large panel flipped up and pressed against it's feet, holding the giant suit securely in place.  
"Docking complete. Virtue's GN drive initiating link with _Ptolemaios_." Stated the pink haired operator as the container closed, an arm underneath Virtue moved to cover a white circular panel on its back, after the panel opened itself, the arm docked itself to Virtues back.  
" Energy transfer preparations from Virtue to _Ptolemaios_ complete. Initiating transfer." Said the brunette. _Space is the best after all_…Thought Tieria.  
"Good work." Sumeragi told him.  
"What about the mission?" Tieria asked.  
"They completed it safely." Sumeragi replied. "Hurry up and come here. We'll have a toast."  
"I'll humbly decline." Tieria said in response.  
"You meanie…" replied Sumeragi.

–-

Yzak was not in pleasant mood, the confines of his mobile suit's cockpit only served to exacerbate it, at least smashing up enemy suits helped calm him down somewhat, he was still railing over the conversation he had with the captain of the _Minerva,_ he had the feeling that there was more happening that he was being let in on.

_Flashback_

_"Well I read through your service records, and I'm very pleased to have officers of your caliber onboard." Talia Gladys told Yzak, as he stood in her quarters.  
"Thank you, Captain." He relied, eyeing Za Burrel with caution. "Although I must ask why my two subordinates were asked to wait outside."  
"I apologise for that, Commander, but as you can see we have limited space here, I trust you will relay your orders to them once we're done." Talia replied smoothly. "Moving on, as you know several terrorist groups, mostly remnants or splinter factions of blue cosmos, have been attacking our orbital elevator , in the last few months, however, there has strangely been a lull in these attacks, which as you know is a cause for concern, as they may be getting their hands on more destructive ordinance as well as regrouping and re-planing their attack in order to better their chances of success." After a pause Rey continued from where Talia left off.  
_

_"One of our satellites picked up this camp in northern Papua New Guinea." Za Burrel handed over a gloss photograph of the camp, Yzak took the photo and, upon closer examination, recognized roughly a dozen mobile suits, notably GAT-706S Deep Forbiddens and GAT/A-01E2 Buster Daggers.  
"The chairman has ordered that we go in and destroy the mobile suits, secure the camp, and eliminate any resistance." Rey finished simply.  
"What?! Now wait a second, Papua New Guinea is part of the Equatorial union, a neutral faction! If we set foot on neutral soil and start a battle, the Atlantic federation and Erusian alliance will have a field day!" Yzak yelled, his tenure in the PLANT supreme council had given him insight into how politics work, and the ramifications behind certain actions.  
"You won't need to worry about that, we already have cover story in place, this ship was in the middle of patrolling the area around the orbital elevator when unknown aggressors opened fire you were left with little choice to pursue the aggressors." Talia stated. "Aside from the mobile suits the only enemy forces you have to contend with will be a small mechanized platoon, and the Minerva will be in the area to provide support, that should keep the heat off your back."  
"Besides, if you and your two subordinates are as good as your service records claim, why are you worried?" Rey asked.  
"But.." Yzak tried to object but Talia cut him off.  
"This has already been decided by the chairman, and as members of FAITH we will carry out those orders." She explained, making it very clear that there was no choice in the matter.  
"Very well." Yzak relented. "Then lets work out a detailed plan for the best course of action."  
"That has already been taken care of as well, we already have a detailed tactical operations plan in place. At 1900 hrs we will conduct the briefing, so please have your officers ready." Rey responded.  
"The operation will begin tonight, the camp is to be secured and all resistance eliminated by dawn." Talia added. "That is all." No sooner had she uttered those words, Yzak had saluted and excused himself from the room, nearly slamming the door on his way out._

_End flashback._

Shaking his head, Yzak tried to clear his head of that conversation, surveying the area his team had just secured a few hours ago, while they had all performed admirably, he had some qualms lying with three of the four redcoats that were part of his squad, namely Rey Za Burrel, Lunamaria Hawke, and Shinn Auska.

Although Rey was polite and followed orders, Yzak knew that something was off, the similarities in his mannerisms to Rau Le Creuset were too close to be coincidental, and the fact that he was close to the chairman and seemed to know more than what he was saying made Yzak regard him with suspicion.  
While Lunamaria Hawke seemed to be a capable officer, her lack of actual combat experience led Yzak to think that she would end up in a situation she couldn't handle, and he wasn't exactly happy about her 'customization' of both her uniform and mobile suit, having to explain why painting it red is the equivalent of putting a giant target on it.  
But the biggest problem was Shin, his lack of respect, and brash, insubordinate attitude had caused more than a few headaches for the silver haired commander, in Yzak's mind he was a wildcard and a liability, a risk to the team members safety.

Yzak knew that some soldiers found it difficult to adjust when they receive a new commanding officer, regarding them as an outsider, and he had tried to be as civil as he possibly could, but Shinn in particular wasn't making it any easier for him, although he wouldn't say it out loud, Yzak was most thankful that Heine Westenfluss was helping to keep Shinn in line.

Speaking of which he looked over to where the Impulse was, baffled as to why such a reckless and headstrong individual was given control of such an expensive piece of equipment, not that he had any grounds of complaint considering he used to be the same way, but that was also why he was concerned for the teams well being, the fact that he knows first-hand what kind of mindset Shinn has, and the damage he was capable of causing if he let his emotions get the better of him.

"Well this was pretty uneventful, but I guess combat can be like that." Lunamaria said on the radio, slightly disappointed that the battle had been little more than a skirmish.  
"Considering the difference in strength, you didn't expect any other outcome did you?" Dearka replied.  
"Since the death of their main leader during the Bloody Valentine War, Blue Cosmos has splintered into dozens of smaller groups, but that doesn't mean that they're lacking in structure, or determination, so don't go thinking we're going to be getting a free ride Dearka." Shiho chastised.  
"So what you mean is, even though the main group has been fragmented, it doesn't make them any less dangerous." Lunamaria summarized.  
"Exactly. If anything its made Blue Cosmos even more dangerous, and more difficult to get rid off, the smaller groups are much harder to find, and every time we get rid of one, another 2 take their place. Never forget that most of them in this camp didn't put up much of a fight, others may have gone into hiding in order to regroup, so we can't be too sure that it's safe yet." Heine Added.  
"Yeah…I just wish the _Minerva_ would just hurry up and get here so we can leave." Complained Dearka.

Over where the Impulse was, Shinn was deep in thought over his first taste of actual combat, trying to sort out the emotions boiling around._ I thought that actually fighting would bring me some piece of mind, but at the moment all I feel is sick, Rey said that the feeling would go away, and that I shouldn't feel remorse for them, I guess he's right, after all, Heine said the same thing, well he said the first part of it, I wonder what would Commander Joule tell me? Dammit Shinn, why are you thinking of getting HIS advice, the guy's a jerkass, who does he think he is? Probably got that promotion because his mum was part of the PLANT supreme council, then again, Heine seems to trust him, and he is pretty skilled, the guy is a veteran of the last war and that must count for something, crap I can't think in here! I need some fresh air!_  
Sending the Impulse into a kneeling position and opening the cockpit hatch, Shinn got out of the Impulses cockpit as quickly as he could and ran till he was roughly 18 feet away from it, he slid the visor for his helmet up and just stood there, hoping the fresh air would clear his mind, he also turned his radio off so he wouldn't be disturbed.

"What the hell is he doing?" Yzak asked himself, before trying to contact him via his radio. "Lieutenant Auska! What are you doing?! We're still in a combat zone!" he yelled, but Shinn didn't respond.  
"His radio is turned off sir, we can't reach him." Heine informed him.  
"Damn it, this is just what I need, someone get that dickhead back inside his mobile suit now!" Yzak bellowed, his patience for the black haired pilot running out.

"What on earth is he doing?" Deakra muttered, as he watched the spectacle unfold, Heine moved up, and switched the communication system in his ZAKU to the external speakers.  
"Lieutenant Auska." His voice boomed out. "return to your mobile suit immediately." No response. "That's an order!" again no response, unknown to them, Shinn had spaced out completely what they also didn't know was that a sniper was aiming at Shinn, waiting for the rifle settle long enough for him to shoot, sensing something was going to happen, Lunamaria also leapt out of her cockpit and ran towards Shinn, yelling his name out in the hope that he would hear her.

BANG!!

She stopped dead in her tracks as Shinn slowly fell to the ground, frozen with fear as she saw that he just lay there, unmoving.  
"SHINN!!" she screamed.  
"SNIPER!! 12 O'CLOCK!!" Shiho yelled, Rey, Heine and Dearka opened fire in that area with their beam rifles, vaporizing the sniper in a brutal display of overkill.  
"Shinn! Shinn can you hear me?!" Lunamaria frantically yelled at him, trying to get his helmet off, finally doing so after fumbling with the release catch for a couple of seconds, Shinn was wide eyed and in a state of shock, but physically alright, the bullet had glanced off the side of his helmet, leaving a large dent, but the helmet remained more or less intact.

"W-wha-what j-j-just h-h-h-happened?" he stuttered, jittery as his brain tried to process what had occurred, meanwhile inside her cockpit Shiho noticed that her radar was acting funny, looking up she saw a orange and white jet shaped object heading towards them.  
"Commander, we have a bogie inbound!" she informed Yzak. "It's a Gundam!" Yzak swore when he heard this.  
"This is not my fucking day…Form up!! Elmsman, take up an artillery position. Hahnenfuss, you cover him. Za Burrel, you take the left flank, Westenfluss, take the right. Hawke, stay with Auska and take cover behind Elmsman and Hahnenfuss, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid." He ordered, they all got into their assigned positions like clockwork, once Shinn was up on his feet, he pushed Lunamaria aside, picked up his helmet and made a dash for the Impulse.

The Gundam Kyrios continued it slow descent to the FAITH unit's location, as it neared the ground it ejected its flight container and swooped low, transforming into mobile suit mode in the process, as its feet touched earth it slid to a halt and straightened itself, its pilot, Allelujah Haptism, looking at the assembled mobile suits impassively.

"Kyrios has entered the combat zone, beginning intervention."


	9. Chapter 9

usual diclaimer. I don't own Gundam, etc, etc  
--

Chapter 9

The unit of ZAKUs stood in their formation as the Kyrios landed, bringing their shields to cover the torso region of the suits.  
"Will a beam cannon stop it?" Dearka inquired. Unfolding the barrel of the massive 'Orthos' beam cannon mounted on his ZAKU.  
"No idea." Shiho replied. _So that's why they sent us here, to lure a Gundam out._  
"Assume that that it's comparable to the Impulse in performance and calculate accordingly, and be cautious, I don't want a repeat of the last incident involving one of these." Yzak ordered, the last bit of his sentence partially directed at Dearka.

"Got it." They all replied, Dearka lining up the crosshairs on the Kyrios before firing, there was a brief lull before the cannon fired, sending a massive burst of energy hurtling towards the Kyrios, at the last moment it slid to the right, avoiding the blast before advancing, weaving left and right to leave its opponents unsure in regards to its trajectory.

"How the hell can that thing move so fast?" Shiho growled, firing off several missiles from her Blaze wizard pack, the missiles hit the ground behind the Kyrios, unable to lock on due to the GN particles, Kyrios turned and fired a burst from its beam sub-machine gun, which Shiho promptly blocked by the ZAKUs shield.

"We can't get a lock-on, something is interfering with the targeting systems!" Dearka yelled, as Kyrios moved left, Rey copied his movements, firing a few shots from its beam rifle at the Kyrios, as Kyrios dodged the shots it turned and flew past Za Burrel, heading straight for the Impulse.  
"Target." Allelujah muttered.

By that time Shinn had gotten back inside the cockpit and was in the process of booting up the systems, the screen lighting up to show Kyrios poised to attack, firing up his boosters, Shinn moved the Impulse up and back, avoiding the burst of fire from Kyrios' beam sub-machine gun.  
"The Impulse is up!" Lunamaria reported as her ZAKU came back to life.  
"Both of you, return to formation." Yzak ordered, Lunamaria did as she was told, Shinn on the other hand chose to attack Kyrios instead.

"Lt Auska! Dammit. All units take up flanking positions, stick to beam rifles and switch to manual targeting. Try to lead your shots when firing, keep your heads on a swivel and stay on the move!" the other pilots complied, kicking up large amounts of dust in the process.

Shinn was getting more and more frustrated with his opponent, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't land a hit on the Kyrios, it would dodge and then return a spray of beam shots right at him, though they were easy to block, he was sure that the shield would not last much longer, securing the rifle to his units back, he pulled one of the beam sabres from the force silhouette and charged at Kyrios, yelling incoherently as he swung at it, Kyrios blocked the incoming blade with its shield, and tried to bring its beam sub-machine gun to bear, Shinn grabbed Kyrios' right arm with the Impulses remaining limb, in order to avoid being shot at, as the two suits struggled Kyrios' leg shot upwards suddenly, kicking the Impulse square in the face, freeing itself with a back flip in the process, before flying upwards into the clouds.

The battle wore on for several more minutes, the ZAKUs would weave left and right firing the occasional shot whenever Kyrios presented itself, Kyrios remained hidden in the clouds descending to fire a burst of fire on the move before heading back up into the clouds again, with the Impulse in constant pursuit, eventually disaster struck.  
"What's going on?!" Lunamaria cried out.  
"What's wrong?" Westenfluss asked  
"I'm losing torque in my legs!" she replied, at that moment another spray of beam shots came out, clipping Shihos ZAKU in the right shoulder, sending it toppling down. Kyrios came out of hiding again, this time sweeping low and heading towards the straggling group, before feinting and moved for the Impulse, unprepared for such a move Shinn tried to backpedal as fast as he could, but the Kyrios was too fast.

"Lt. Auska, get away from that thing! It's far too maneuverable and is moving differently from before!" Yzak bellowed, Kyrios suddenly stopped and threw its legs up, kick up a huge amount of dust, blocking Shinns view, as he squinted to try and see something, Kyrios suddenly lunged out, punching forward with it's left arm. Shinn brought the Impulses right hand up to block the incoming arm, to his dismay the tip of Kyrios' shield split through the hand, and then the lower arm, shearing the limb into two halves as the shield tip dug itself into the elbow joint, Shinn tried to move the Impulse only to find that he couldn't.

"Dammit, MOVE!" He yelled, confused as to why the Impulse wouldn't respond.  
"Lt Auska, why are you immobile?! Status report!" Yzak demanded, not bothering to answer back, Shinn quickly brought up the information on the Impulses condition.  
"The-the secondary articulation servos are failing!" Shinn replied, beginning to panic.  
"It's the dust we've been kicking up, it's getting into the joints of our units." Westenfluss added. Kyrios and the Impulse remained locked in position for a few more seconds before an explosion occurred to their right.  
"It's the _Minerva_!" Lunamaria cried, ecstatic. Sure enough the _Minerva_ had arrived onto the battlefield, its 'Isolde' triple cannon aimed in Kyrios' rough direction, Kyrios removed its shield from the Impulses elbow and floated backwards, as the _Minerva's_ crew prepared to fire it shot upwards, transforming in the process, in a heartbeat Kyrios was out of sight.

--

As the _Ptolemaios_ continued on towards its destination, Sumeragi and the rest of the crew stood inside the briefing room, they watched impassively as Atlantic federation president Joseph Copeland gave a speech regarding Celestial Being's actions to the mass media.

"Since Celestial Being's armed intervention at Ceylon Island, the lives of 148 of our soldiers have been lost. Even though they claim their goal is the eradication of conflict, the actions taken by Celestial Being are nothing more than terrorist attacks, disrupting the order of our nation. We of the Atlantic federation, stand firmly opposed to the actions of this terrorist group."

"They really hate us, eh?" the helmsman remarked to the ships gunner, Lasse Aeon.  
"It's a natural response." He replied casually, as if the news did not surprise him.  
"But because of what we've done, the Atlantic federation is reinforcing their military forces even further." Added Christina sierra, the brunette tactical operator.  
"Even if they do as you say, all it means is we'll have to continue to intervene." Tieria coldly responded as he floated into the room, startling the helmsman and Lasse.  
"Elimination of warfare." Came the emotionless response of Feldt Grace, the pink haired tactical operator.  
"Yes, that's right. Celestial Being's true ambition." Tieira finished, turning to face everyone else.

In ORB, at an apartment block in the Capital's CBD, Setsuna was glossing over a newspaper article about Aeolia Schenberg, disinterested, he placed it down and looked back to the televised speech by Copeland, that we was half paying attention to.

"Celestial being will reinforce themselves as well, for this reason we must continue to pull together as a union."

"Hey Allelujah, I hear you had a tough time during your confrontation with a ZAFT unit." Lockon said, attempting to make conversation with the pilot whilst Kyrios underwent maintenance.  
"Yes" Allelujah replied solemnly "They we're better prepared than anticipated, the officer leading the unit was quite capable, but it is confirmed that ZAFT has made a new model of battle ship, as well as a suit that resembles a Gundam."  
"All things considered, the PLANTs must perceive us as a threat if they were to risk having knowledge of their secret mobile suit AND battleships existence made public." Lockon mused.  
"I suppose it's to be expected. Eradicating war isn't something we can attain so easily." Allelujah said.  
"That said, you should rest while you can. We'll be busy again soon enough." Lockon told him  
before walking out of the door, leaving Allelujah to his thoughts. _It's been 10 years since that day, Hallelujah, so, why did you do it again during the intervention? I had things under control…_  
unable to get an answer, Allelujah turned to look at Kyrios.  
"Implementing a great peace…for that purpose we have the Gundams."

It was sunset at the Marshall Islands when an Orb heli VTOL craft flew into view, it slowly descended to the ground sending up large clouds of dust, from one of the cabins Lacus Clyne came running out to see what the commotion was, and immediately stopped dead in her tracks when a man with dark blue hair came out of the cockpit.

"A-Athrun." She stuttered, "what brings you here?" Athrun closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  
"You know why I'm here Lacus…I'm sorry" Athrun mumbled, hanging his head, Lacus lowered hers as well.  
"I see…but, isn't there another way?" she asked even though she knew the answer.  
"I tried to reason with a Cagalli, but she's scared of what might happen to him if we just leave him here unprotected." Athrun saw tears well up in her eyes.  
"He isn't going to be doing any piloting though, I assure you. And you, Malchio, and the kids in his orphanage can come along too if you want."  
"Right." Lacus replied. "Where will he be staying?"  
"With you, in an apartment located in the Capital. If worse comes to worse, we'll move you to either the palace, or the mansion Ramius and Waltfeld own." Athrun replied.  
"Ok, we'll need some time to organize everything, and I'll need to explain to Kira what's going on." Lacus stated.  
"Sure, just try to be quick." Athrun replied, Lacus nodded and ran back inside the cabin, locating Kira in the living room.  
"Kira?" she called out tentatively, slowly his head rose up to look at her, Lacus almost couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. "We have to go now."  
"…Why?" he said softly, under different circumstances, Lacus would've laughed at his almost child-like response.  
"Because it's not safe here anymore Kira." She explained, Kira lowered his head.  
"…It's not fair." He said, his voice almost a whisper.  
"I know Kira. But, sometimes for people like us, life never is."

"So how was it, Colonel? Your little bout with the Gundam?" asked the Atlantic federation forces Commander. "I'd like to hear your honest impressions."

"This is my personal opinion, but those mobile suits called Gundams…Are unlike anything else on Earth." Replied Colonel Sven Cal Bayan.  
"So what do you think of it's capabilities?" The Commander asked.  
"It's my opinion." Sven said simply.  
"Then I have a change of orders for you, Colonel." Stated the Commander. "Colonel, I'm ordering you to obtain a Gundam, before the Erusian alliance, Orb or PLANTs do. I'm placing you in charge of the 81st Independent Mobile Battalion."  
"Phantom Pain?" Sven stated incredulously.

"Correct." Replied the Commander. "I'll leave the selection of Personnel to you, except one soldier I'm assigning to you."

"huh?" was Sven's response, the Commander turned to the door behind him.

"Come in." he stated, immediately the door opened, and a teenage girl with blonde hair and red eyes strode into the room, stopping and standing straight with perfect posture, before saluting both officers.  
"Excuse me. Extended Super Soldier 1, dispatched from the Ubermensch Facility of Technological research, Ensign Stella Loussier reporting." The girl replied smoothly. Sven narrowed his eyes as he regarded the girl.  
"Super soldier? Commander, surely you're not planning…" Sven began but the Commander cut him off.  
"Seems the Extended program was continued in secrecy. It also seems the higher-ups consider her to be our trump card against the Gundams." Stella turned to face Sven.  
"As of today, I will be joining the Colonel's brigade, my best regards." She stated.  
"No matter how you look at it, she's way too young." Sven muttered to himself.

--

Mechanics and tech crews moved back and forth tirelessly inside the _Minerva's_ massive hanger bay, working to get the ships compliment of mobile suits back into perfect working order, on one of the upper levels of the hanger, a tech crew member named Yolant was talking to Lunamaria.  
"Vacuuming wasn't enough so we had to strip 'em down." He said, gesturing to the half skeletal figures that were the ZAKUs "whole modules need replacing."  
"Can you get them finished before 1400 hrs tomorrow?" Lunamaria asked hopefully.  
"We could try, but a better thing would be for you guys to treat these things with a little more respect!" he stated before walking off. Lunamaria took one last look at the ZAKUs before leaving the hangar, walking into Heine in one of the corridors.  
"So, what's the status of the mobile suits?" he asked as they made their way towards the cafeteria

"It looks as though the Dust, more than the Gundam, is the issue at hand." Lunamaria replied.  
"That's not our only problem." Heine responded cryptically, puzzled, Lunamaria opened the door to the Cafeteria…and then wished she hadn't.

"I'm waiting for an answer. What were you doing out there Auska?!" came the booming voice of a rather pissed off Yzak Joule, everyone was keeping a wide berth of the silver haired Coordinator for fear of invoking his wrath as he stood looming over a sullen Shinn Auska, who looked like a child who had been caught with his hand in the biscuit jar, though he wasn't saying anything, Lunamaria could he wasn't very comfortable with the position he was in.  
"Hey! Are you even listening to me?!" Yzak slapped his hand against the table "It's your duty to answer this question, Lieutenant!" again silence reigned from the black haired pilot as he remained seated with his head down, Dearka brought his head up from a handheld game console he was playing with.  
"Maybe he blew a fuse out there, it wouldn't be the first time someone has flipped out in combat." He suggested.

"Is that it? Is that the reason you acted like that?" Shiho asked as she stood up "To me, it was as if you were…"  
"He was doing what? Major Hahnenfuss?" interrupted Rey Za Burrel, Shiho paused for a second.  
"…nothing." She immediately sat back down.

"This all stems from the question…the question of having a insubordinate maverick among us." Yzak stated.  
"I will make that decision." Said Talia as she entered the cafeteria. "But is there anything want to add, Lieutenant Auska?"

"No. Ma'am." Shinn replied in a hushed tone.

"Right, you may leave." Talia responded, Shinn rose from his seat and left the cafeteria.

At a hanger on the Victoria base, three figures were looking at the sleek mobile suit that they had finished working on, while still in the prototype stage, the Erusian CAT2-X Flag, a transformable variation of the Hyperion, was still a force to be reckoned with, that didn't stop some of the engineers modifying one of them to better it's chances of facing off against one of Celestial Being's Gundams.  
"I've increased the output of the backpack and frame, and reinforced the frame with an anti-beam coating. It's also armed with an experimental rifle from Iris Co. as well." The eldest member of the group, Professor Leif Eifman, stated proudly.  
"splendid work, professor!" replied it's pilot, a blonde man with green eyes.  
"To reduce the strain on you, I've put in an anti-g system, so you should be able to withstand about 12gs with ease." Added the other person, a young man with long brown hair in a ponytail and glasses.  
"I knew you could handle it." The pilot responded in thanks.

"Oh, so this is the Lieutenants Flag?" Came the voice of one of two newcomers, both of them admiring the work done to the suit.  
"Warrant officer Mudie Holcroft, Master Sargent Shams Coza." The former stated as they both saluted. "At the request of Lieutenant Graham Aker, we've been assigned under you in the Anti-Gundam Autonomous Mobile Group."

"You've come at last, Welcome, Flag Fighters." Graham replied, saluting in return.

"Yuna, did you see the evening news?" Unato asked his son as they sat in his office. "The commentators were expressing concern about Celestial Being appointing themselves policemen of the world. What'd I tell you?"  
"An excellent idea, Like the U.N., but without the Bureaucracy." Yuna replied. A snide reference to the now non-existent United Nations.  
"Inside all people, dispositions against things like this exist I believe. Like being told what to do." Unato responded. "I'm sure this group is no exception to that rule." A messenger entered the room.

"Mr Seiran, it has been reported that Mozambique will make an announcement tomorrow." The head of the Seiran estate leant back in his chair, pondering what would come from this turn of events.


	10. Chapter 10

Insert usual disclaimer about not owning the subject material (in this case Gundam) for this fanfic here.

--

Chapter 10

April 5, CBS-70 _Ptolemaios_, Lagrange point 1, Earth's orbit

"Veda, let's see your estimations..." Sumeragi muttered as she sat in front of the massive screen inside her private quarters. On it several windows of scrolling data was displayed before a map of the earth was depicted with three locations highlighted.  
_It's the same as I predicted,_ she thought, _so now we have 12 intervention plans. But no matter which we choose, they're all risky. I understand that, but I still don't want to do it._ A window opened up displaying Christina's face.

"Ms. Sumeragi! Just now Mozambique issued a statement!" she told the strategic advisor, a look of concern briefly crossed Sumeragi's face before she looked at the main screen, noticing that Mozambique was one of the locations highlighted by Veda.  
"As expected, Mozambique."

Inside the Seiran estate, Unato and his son Yuna were watching the televised declaration by Mozambique's Prime minister.  
"The Erusian alliance claims to be a balanced alliance of 50 nations, but in reality the European union alone is controlling our Solar Power System. Our republic of Mozambique therefore secedes from the alliance, and insists on our right to use our energy! In order to defend ourselves from political or foreign pressures, we have armed ourselves with a military. Our country firmly opposes our former European rulers. Our country now declares our rebellion against the Erusian alliance!" the assembly in front of the Prime minister then stood up as they erupted into applause, Unato was silent for a bit before turning to Yuna.

"Yuna, call a meeting of the parliament. Summon all the major representatives." Yuna cringed at that, as it meant dealing with the Sahakus. Coordinators.  
"Understood" he forced out, before leaving, trying to keep a scowl forming on his face.

--

"Mozambique made their move, eh?" Athrun asked rhetorically from the cockpit of the VTOL craft, Lacus, who was in the seat behind, nodded slightly before responding.  
"That country is strong to break free from the Erusian alliance, but…if they secede, won't they just be conquered to preserve the energy supply?" Athrun remained silent for a bit.  
"I suppose he could even be doing this in preparation for his upcoming re-election." He guessed, before turning the aircraft's radio off.  
"Has the situation in the countries surrounding the Orbital Elevator decayed so much that a breakdown like this has to happen?" Lacus asked.  
"Naturally, in agreement with the European union, the Erusian alliance is going to decide on a military intervention. But Mozambique knows this and has predicted what will happen." Athrun continued seemingly ignoring her question, she lowered her head and started thinking about what he said. _Predicted…  
_"You're saying Mozambique is using Celestial being?" she inquired  
"More or less. Mozambique can make a stand because they're close to the Elevator, I suppose. Unlike most nations, they have cards to play." Athrun answered.  
"I wonder if Celestial being will really show up?" Lacus mused.  
"Who knows, depending on how Celestial being chooses to deal with Mozambique, the future's of many other countries, including Orb, may change." Athrun replied.

Inside the Cafeteria of an Atlantic federation base, Sven and Stella sat at one of the tables whilst watching the news regarding Mozambique.  
"Ensign, do you know why Mozambique has resorted to extreme measures like this?" he asked.  
"I believe they think that if the Erusians try to retake Mozambique, Celestial Being will intervene in the battle." Stella responded.  
"Exactly." Sven replied

"Are you going to be baited in, Gundam?" Graham asked himself as he got into his flight suit.

Inside a red limo heading along one of the freeways leading out of the Orb capital, Wang Liu Mei smiled to herself. _Although you can try to understand and use us, we still move on our own._

Determination written on her face, Sumeragi made her way to the _ptolemaios'_ briefing room where the other crew members were present, all of them turning to face her after she entered the room.  
"We're beginning the mission." She stated. "Contact the Gundam Meisters!"

--

Across the globe, in various hidden locations, the Meisters rushed towards their respective Gundams, the behemoths of destruction booting up their systems and setting off to their destination, elsewhere Graham Arce as his wingmen were doing the same, cruising along gently after taking off from Victoria base.  
"You're going to take on a Gundam? This should be fun, Lieutenant." Mudie remarked.  
"I think so too." Graham said in return. "Now then, how far can this Custom Flag go in terms of matching a Gundam? No, lets see how well they can keep up!" He fired up the afterburners, his Flag jumping forward of his wingmen's as it accelerated, the aircraft gaining speed and speeding off into the horizon.

"The Erusian 3rd Fleet has arrived at Mozambique's coastal waters." Feldt stated to the Meisters and Sumeragi.  
"The airforce has scrambled from Victoria Airbase, they seem to have seized control of the airspace above one of Mozambique's Major cities." Christina added.  
"And Mozambique's army?" Sumeragi asked.  
"There are three locations where they have a large number of Hyperion G Mobile Suits stationed." Replied Christina.  
"Surely this is a critical situation." Lasse mused.  
"Miss Sumeragi, what should we do?" Inquired Lichty, the ships helmsman.  
"What we always do, We only have one goal." Sumeragi replied, looking out the bridge's main window at the southern region of the African continent.

On the Bridge of the Erusian fleets main carrier, on the crewmembers spotted something in the distance, as it rapidly approached, he noticed that it was humanoid shaped, was blue and white in colour, and that green light was trailing behind it, at it got closer he realized that it was one of Celestial Being's Gundams.

"Captain! Gundam sighted!" he yelled as the Gundam sped by, the gap between the passing Gundam and the bridge being only a few meters, the ships captain promptly stood up.  
"That's a Gundam?!" he cried out in awe.

Over the main city's CBD Dynames and Kyrios arrived, being tailed by a unit of F-7D Spearheads.  
"This is Blue Shark, we have visual confirmation of two Gundams." Stated the flight leader. "They're heading for the capital, Requesting further details." The radio soon cut out. "Our communications are being interrupted. Is that the Gundams doing too?" he mused.

"Mr. Prime minister, Celestial Being has arrived." An aid informed Mozambique's Prime minister, as he stood gazing out of the large window in his office.  
"So they really came?" he stated.

"The Gundams are currently moving alone towards three different locations." A man informed the Erusian Carrier's captain.  
"Do they really think they can intervene with the bulk of the Erusian forces here?" the Captain asked, concern written across his face.

At the PLANTs, Chairman Durandal was watching the news with interest. _If Celestial Being intervenes, it'll be a great boon for Mozambique. On the other hand, if they don't, the Erusian army will be unforgiving. They may never recover. So how will you play this, Celestial Being?_ _What kind of action will you take? _All the other prominent world leaders had similar thoughts as they watched the events unfold, after a long pause Sumeragi uttered two words under her breath.  
"Mission, start."

--

A bright pink beam of energy shot out of the horizon followed by another, the shots striking a cluster of the Mozambique army's Hyperions. The orange mobile suits immediately scattered to avoid being hit.  
"What the..?" cried out one of the pilots.  
"A pre-emptive Erusian strike?" wondered another before warning sounds started going off in his cockpit, he looked up in time to dodge another shot, he looked in the direction of the shot's source, to see Exia speeding straight for his unit.  
"Gundam?! B-but why? We haven't even done anything yet!" he yelled out, enraged. Exia landed on a main street in the capital, a unit of Hyperions in front of him.  
"Mozambique has been determined to be war-supporting country, target shall be eliminated." Stated Setsuna. Exia charged forward, its shield held in front as protection, the Hyperions opened fire with their beam sub-machine guns, but the shots merely glanced off the shield, when it was close enough Exia began slashing left and right, destroying mobile suits with ease, up in the sky Kyrios changed into mobile suit mode during a dive run.  
"Kyrios, entering combat operations!" Allelujah said, cutting down the opposing mobile suits with his own beam sub-machine gun, with Dynames following suite with its Sniper rifle.  
"You all should just give up, you can't win!" Lockon remarked as he picked off targets with impunity, Kyrios did a flip and destroyed two Hyperions that shot at him as they were moving along a freeway.  
"However, this was just so one sided…" Allelujah replied, soon the Mozambique Forces were in a total rout.

"The Gundams have attacked our forces!" Yelled an aide as he rushed into the Prime ministers office.  
"So then, they decided to attack us instead. Get me the spokesman for the European union." He said dejectedly, after seeing how his ploy to use Celestial Being and backfired dramatically, no less than 15 seconds later he received a video call from Gerard Garcia.  
"Celestial being probably regards your country and its existence as troublesome, so they attacked it." Garcia summed up at the end of their conversation. "I believe their actions are regrettable." Garcia then paused to hear what the Prime minister had to offer.  
"Of course, if you withdraw your secession from the Alliance, we'd be happy to dispatch troops to protect your country." Garcia replied smoothly. "Is that right? I understand." He finished, before closing the video call, and looking to one of his aides. "Inform our forces to commence their attack on Celestial Being for the defense of the republic of Mozambique, one of our allies."

"Erusian mobile suits have launched. As expected, they're only defending Mozambique" Christina informed Sumeragi.  
"Entering the withdrawal phase of the mission plan." Feldt said. "Returning to the safety zone."  
"What an awful joke" Tieria said as he floated by the door, a warning sound on Christina's console went off.  
"Hold on a minute, Exia has a pursuer!" She exclaimed, getting everyone's attention. "An Erusian CAT2-X Flag?" Sumeragi moved to look at the console.  
"Erusian? What's the meaning of this?" she asked rhetorically.  
"It's in hot pursuit of Exia at a speed of more than double the usual specs!" Christina told her. Above the ocean, the black mobile suit was closing on Exia rapidly, a fact not lost on Setsuna.  
"That Flag…" he murmured, wondering how it was so fast, inside the Flag's cockpit, Graham was preparing for his attack.  
"This is where I take on the Gundam…A splendid situation, isn't it?!" He said to no one in particular before shooting the Flag upward, firing off five shots from his beam rifle. The blue bolts flew past Exia with the Flag zooming by afterwards, it circled around before changing from plane mode to mobile suit mode, Setsuna fired off two shots from his own beam rifle, but the Flag dodged them.  
"It's fast!" he exclaimed, the Flag fired off another volley, Exia dodged the first three, but the fourth struck it squarely on the shield, the force of the impact knocking Exia out of the sky, Graham continued firing shots at the descending Gundam, but the Exia evaded by submerging itself under the water.  
"That was amazing lieutenant!" Praised Shams as he and Mudie finally caught up with Graham.  
"He got away…" Graham lamented "I've only faced you once with my Custom Flag…But to even be able to function underwater…You're too damn versatile, Gundam!"

--

"It can't be…They attacked Mozambique's forces?" Cagalli said to herself as she stood in her office, exhausted after the events in the parliament.  
"It seems that Mozambique and the Erusian alliance will end up as they predicted, don't you agree?" came the voice of a newcomer, one that Cagalli recognized, as it belong to none other than Rondo Mina Sahaku.  
"As predicted you say?" she inquired.  
"Mozambique, which was assaulted by Celestial Being, enlisted the help of the Erusian forces on its own." Mina explained "The Anti-Erusian sentiments in Mozambique are dissipating, so it's possible for them to cut into the Erusian leadership's policies. The current Government in Mozambique is safely gaining Erusian support. In order for other countries to avoid the same mistake that Mozambique made, I believe an outspoken anti-Erusian policy should be worked out." She paused again so Cagalli could digest the information before continuing. "Who benefited most during this course of events? If you can't understand that, you have no right to lead this country. Representative Cagalli Yula Atha."

It was night fall in the Orb capital when Lacus was allowed to move into the apartment she and Kira would be staying in, first the room was swept for listening devices and such, all the furniture replaced 'just to be sure', then the neighbouring buildings checked for safety, and after that their personal belongings were screened, twice. The final cherry on top was having to have her hair dyed blonde rather than remain its usual pink colour. Personally she thought Cagalli was going a bit over board, but then she remembered that Kira was the only family that Cagalli had left so it would make sense that she wouldn't want to take any chances in regard to his safety, especially when her position gave her the means to do so, jarring herself out of her thoughts she was about to put the key into the door when she noticed a man in about to enter the apartment next to hers, he was an average looking person, with tanned skin, dark hair and burgundy eyes.  
"Hi" she chirped, being her usual friendly self, after all, it would also help to be in the neighbour's good graces seeing as she was new. "Um, are you my neighbour, my name is L..." she caught herself there, remembering to use the new alias given to her "Louise, Louise Halevy, I'm going to be living here for a bit." The man just looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  
"Setsuna F. Seiei" he finally said after a long pause.  
"Seiei? What a unique name, anyway nice to meet y..." a sound of a door closing told Lacus that this Setsuna had already entered his apartment, without so much as a good bye. "How unfriendly" she said to herself before going into her own apartment.

Wang Liu Mei smiled and took another sip from her cup of tea, relaxing near the outside pool in her villa whilst conversing with Sumeragi over the phone.  
"Seems that what happened today caused quite a commotion within the upper echelons of the standing governments." She told the strategist, leaning back and savouring the cool breeze.  
"That's to be expected, however it still didn't make issuing the order to start the mission any easier." Sumaeragi replied. Liu Mei smirked at this.  
"True, however, Celestial Being's founder, Aeolia Schenberg did make it quite clear in his opening declaration, Celestial Being will strike down any nation with a military agenda." Liu Mei swiftly retorted, Sumeragi sighed in defeat.  
"Indeed, by the way, the other main power blocs aren't taking things lying down either, already there have been three attempts to capture the Exia as well as one on the Kyrios." Sumeragi informed Liu Mei.  
"I see, it was expected to happen sooner or later, though it does concern me that they seem to have a preference for Exia, you might want to tell the Meister of Exia to be on his guard more." Liu Mei said.  
"Already have, speaking of which, Allelujah has been selected for the upcoming mission regards the new prototype suits the Atlantic federation are developing." Sumeragi replied,  
"Good." Liu Mei said before Sumeragi hung up, content that Sumeragi could handle the situation, Liu Mei got up from her chair and went inside, eager to begin preparations for the upcoming mission.


	11. Chapter 11

Usual disclaimer, I don't own Gundam, mobile suits, the characters, Pringles, linear trains or even a PDA.  
--

Chapter 11

April 19, Atlantic federation Orbital Elevator Linear Elevator Arrival and Departure Lobby.

"Geez Shiho, you didn't have to go out of your way to see us off." Dearka whined as they stood in the lobby of the giant orbital elevator terminal, the pair dressed in casual attire as opposed to their regular ZAFT uniforms.  
"I'm not happy with having to baby-sit you and Shinn either, but Yzak doesn't want any screw-ups on our end whilst he's having a meeting with the federation branch office here, you and Shinn better not even think about goofing off." She scolded. "Because your 'officially' on leave, it means that the ZAFT military isn't covering your travel expenses, I am." Dearka had the decency to hang his head in shame.  
"Sorry, but Lunamaria insisted that the three of us have a private cabin." He explained. Shiho just sighed.  
"God damn it…that spoiled little brat…" Shiho muttered.  
"What was that about me?" Lunamaria chirped as she rushed over to where the two were standing dragging Shinn with her, the pair also in plainclothes.  
"L-Lunamaria?!" Shiho stammered.  
"Don't worry about a thing Shiho, I will ab-so-lutely take care of these two." Lunamaria said cheerfully, grasping both Dearka and Shinn by their shoulders.  
"I suppose if your there supervising then there's nothing to worry about…Dearka, I don't want you or Shinn getting carried away, and don't go hitting on any girls you meet either." Shiho told them sternly prompting an indignant yell out of Dearka, meanwhile, near one of the escalators two people in federation uniforms met up.  
"The paperwork's done. Let's go, Ensign" Sven told her.  
"Affirmative, Colonel." Stella replied in monotone. The pair then walked off in the direction of the linear train.

At one of the parks in Orb, Setsuna was sitting on one of the benches having lunch when he got a message on his PDA, immediately he picked the device up and read the message.

"Mobile Suit performance inspection…" he murmured to himself before turning the PDA off. Hearing footsteps he instinctively looked up to see the pink haired girl that lived in the apartment next to his, standing next to her was a withdrawn looking guy with brown hair.

"Oh hi" Lacus said, immediately noticing Setsuna on the bench.  
"Louise Halevy." he replied.

"Yeah, so you remembered my name after all." Lacus chirped back, before gesturing to Kira "This is my boyfriend, Saji." Setsuna merely nodded in response, while Kira just stared at him.  
"Uh, who is this?" he asked Lacus.  
"Oh, he's our neighbour…umm…" she trailed off  
"Setsuna F. Seiei" Setsuna reminded her.

"The next mission arrived from Ms. Sumeragi. I'm supposed to spy on the performance inspection of a new suit. I might have to destroy it, too." Allelujah informed Lockon, while Haro bounced up and down repeatedly.  
"Be careful, Allelujah. Ever since Mozambique, we've become public enemy number one." Lockon advised.  
"Thanks for your advice." Alleluah replied.

--

"Thank you very much for flying on today's Pillar of Heaven flight E603. This Linear Train is now en route to the Orbital Station True Pillar. Estimated time of arrival is 18:32. The length of the trip is estimated to be 3 hours and 32 minutes. The trains initial acceleration is complete, we will now decrease the acceleration, creating a simulated 0g environment. You may remove your seatbelts, but please do not leave the cabin." Announced one of the stewardesses as the train made its vertical accent inside the pillar. Inside one of the cabins, Sven and Stella sat facing each other, remaining still and relaxed as they neared their destination.  
"By the way Ensign, I meant to ask why you volunteered for the Extended program." Sven suddenly asked, breaking the silence.  
"I did not volunteer. I was born for the purpose of being enlisted. I am a design baby." Stella replied, Sven remained silent, narrowing his eyes as he remembered the conversation he had with one of the scientists involved in the program.

_Flashback _

_At one of the labs, Sven was getting an explanation from one of the scientists, while Stella was running on one the treadmills the lab used to measure stamina and general physical fitness of subjects._

"_Inside Extended Super Solider 01's body are countless Micromachines that maintain her body to the highest standards." Boasted the Scientist. "They allow her to function in extreme environments, like space, for extended periods of time. And with alterations to her synapses and senses-"  
"That's enough explanation." Sven interrupted, the man just looked at him, dumbfounded.  
"You're not pleased with her?" the scientist inquired, Sven turned away from the guy  
"The people of this organization don't think at all about what they're doing, do they?" Sven stated.  
"No, we don't. For the purposes of adapting to harsh environments, we need people like the Ensign. The scientist retorted._

_End flashback._

"What is it, Colonel?" Stella asked, Sven brought his head up, realizing that he had spaced out.  
"Nothing…" he replied.

Inside another cabin, Shinn was watching a documentary while Lunamaria was mucking around with a can of Pringles, _you'd think she'd never been zero gravity before_, Dearka thought to himself, nearly cringing as she missed one of the floating chips and went into a barrel roll. When the train stopped, she grabbed Shinn and began pushing him out of the door.  
"Hey! I was watching that!" Shinn protested.  
"It's ok, lets go have some fun!" she said gleefully, Dearka just sighed to himself and chased after them, eventually they made it to the lobby.

"We finally got here!" Lunamaria stated triumphantly. Shinn just sighed. "What's wrong?"  
"I'm worn out, We were on that train a long time." Shinn explained.  
"I'm not tired at all." Dearka said.  
"Yeah that's cos you spent half the train ride asleep." Lunamaria retorted.  
"Your Shinn Auska and Lunamaria Hawke right?" Came the voice of a newcomer, approaching them was a friendly looking man in a suit.  
"Well, that's my cue, I'm gonna be off." Dearka said. "Have fun with the tour, I'm going to check up on our accommodation." With that he swiftly made his escape, leaving Shinn and Lunamaria confused and cursing Dearka in their heads.  
"Uh, yeah. That's right." They both replied, the man nodded and smiled.  
"I'll be looking after you during your tour of the orbital ring. I'm Walson Aston." He informed them. "Welcome to the Low Orbit Station, True Pillar." Half an hour later Walson, Shinn and Lunarmaria were in space suits, walking around on the top of the Low Orbit Ring.

"Shinn, do you know the reason why the Low Orbit Ring is so incredibly important?" Walson asked.  
"Yeah, magnetic liquid flows through the ring as it turns, creating artificial gravity, allowing the station to stay at a proper height. Right?" Shinn replied.  
"I see you've done your research." Walson said, impressed.  
"Hey Shinn, come look!" Lunamaria called out, Shinn looked around to see her standing on the edge of the ring.  
"You can't do that, Lunamaria!" Shinn admonished. "Don't just wander wherever you-" what he saw made his eyes widen. It was a spectacular view of the top half of the earth, it was possible to make out most of the countries in detail. He was sure that couldn't get a better view of the earth, not even from the PLANTs.  
"Pretty, isn't it?" Lunamaria asked.  
"Truly…" Shinn responded.  
"It's totally different from seeing it from the PLANTs" noted Lunamaria.  
"You two be careful. Even at 10,000 kilometers up, Earth still has gravity." Warned Walson. "Take one more step and you'll plummet straight to Earth."  
"Oh, right." Shinn said.  
"I'm sorry!" Lunamaria apologized, waving her arm about, in doing so she lost her balance and fell off the edge. Shinn leapt after her, and managed to grab her arm, however his momentum kept him going and being unable to regain his footing, he went over the side with her.  
"Shinn you idiot! Rescue me properly!" Lunamaria yelled at him as they plummeted, suddenly they felt their safety lines snatch and they stopped moving, looking up they saw that Walson had grabbed the lines.  
"Goodness gracious…" Walson muttered to himself.

–-

After checking out the rooms they would be staying in, Dearka had decided that some exploring was in order, whilst exploring the low orbit station he had to admit that the place was very aesthetically pleasing. He was so busy trying to take everything in he wasn't watching where he was going, and promptly walked into someone.

Both people cried out when they collided, before falling over and just laying there, sprawled out on the ground in an undignified fashion, dazed and nursing their heads,  
"Ow, man, son of a bitch, who was th-" Dearka stopped mid sentence, noticing who he walked into.  
"Fuck, damn, ouch, hey what the hell -…Dearka?" The stranger said in surprise.  
"Eh…heh…hi Miri, fancy walking into you on my day off" Dearka said, chuckling in an attempt to break the ice, Miriallia just rolled her eyes.  
"Yeah, very amusing, you're a comedy ninja." She replied sarcastically as she rubbed her head. Dearka got up first before helping her up.  
"Well…this is awkward." He said during the uneasy silence that followed after they dusted themselves off.

"Yeah…so, what is one of ZAFT's 'finest' doing here? Hopefully it's not to make a fool out of yourself going up against an unknown mobile suit on live television. Again." Miriallia asked. Dearkas jaw dropped  
"You..you saw that?" he stammered.  
"Who hasn't? It's been the most looked at video clip on the net for the last 2 weeks." Miriallia stated matter-of-factly. Dearka pouted in response.  
"For your information I'm on leave. And what are you doing here?" he asked in response.  
"Me? I was invited here by the Atlantic federation to cover the performance trials of their new Mobile suits." Miriallia replied.  
"Really, is that a fact?" Dearka replied smugly raising one eyebrow, Miriallia grabbed him by his jacket and pull him closer.  
"Don't play dumb, Dearka." She hissed into his ear. "I know that's why you're here too."  
"Well seeing as we're both here for the same thing, it wouldn't hurt to spend time together, as well as compare notes, wouldn't you agree?" Dearka said as innocently as he could. Miriallia bit back at a retort, while she could say no, Dearka wold probably be detained by federation soldiers if he was on his own, and despite all his flaws she didn't want to see him in a federation cell on reason of suspicion, so she swallowed her pride.  
"Fine." She hissed into his ear again. "You can come with, just try not to attract any attention."

After one of the officers opened a door Sven and Stella entered the room, inside it several federation soldiers were hard at work on the consoles that filled the room.  
"Here it is, Colonel" the officer who opened the door said.  
"This is the suit?" Sven asked, looking at the Mobile suit through the giant window that served as a wall.  
"Yes." The officer responded. "The special suit entrusted to Extended Super Soldier 01. GAT-X1022, the Blu Duel."  
"Blu Duel…My Mobile Suit." Stella muttered.  
"This is our trump card against the Gundams?" Sven asked, gazing at the suit.  
"One of them." The office replied. "There is also a suit for you, Colonel. GAT-X105E with the AQM/E-X09S add on, the Strike Noir, both suits were modified extensively by Actaeon industries, and as such have the best and most advanced technology the federation can muster."  
"I see." Sven replied, doubtful. Though he had faith in the technology, he couldn't help but wonder if it would be enough to defeat one of Celestial Beings Gundams.

--

2 days later, on one of the linear trains heading up towards the low orbit station, a stewardess entered one of the cabins.  
"Would you like any food or drink, sir?" she asked the cabins occupant.  
"Yes please." Allelujah replied, turning his head to face her.  
"What kind of food or drink can I bring for you?' she asked.  
"Some coffee." He said.  
"Right away." Responded the stewardess. "How is your cabin?"  
"I like it, I can look down at the earth from here." Allelujah stated.  
"I understand that feeling. The surface has become a harsh place since the Celestial Being organization arrived." The stewardess lamented.  
"That's true, I don't like it." Lied Allelujah.  
"I'll have your drink in a moment, until then enjoy yourself." The Stewardess said before leaving the cabin.

Inside the low orbit stations gravity block, Shinn and Lunamaria were exploring a huge expansive mall.  
"It really is best when there is gravity after all." Lunamaria stated cheerfully.  
"That's for sure." Agreed Shinn. Whilst walking he saw a cute girl wearing a green turtleneck and a beige trench coat with bright purple knee-length socks coming towards them, her long black hair done up in pig tails. Next to the girl was a slim but imposing looking guy, Shinn assumed was he the girls boyfriend or something, they seemed to be talking about something too, but he was unable to tell what they were saying, as they walked past, the girl looked at him and smiled. He began to slow down and turn his head towards her, only to have Lunamaria grab his ear.  
"Don't let your eyes wander." She chastised after Shinn yelped in pain.  
"S-sorry!" He apologized.

Outside the pillar, two mobile suits were on the move, the Strike Noir, and the Blu Duel.  
"Ensign, Lets have a look at your Suit's maneuverability." Sven ordered. "Try navigating the designated course at maximum output."  
"Understood, Colonel." Replied Stella, "I'm going." almost immediately afterwards the Blu Duel rocketed forwards. "Maximum output reached."  
_At full output, she was only offset by less than one percent._ Sven thought. _That's the strength of the Super Soldier. _He watched as Stella navigated the course. _But this one is still just a young girl…_  
as the suit was accelerating towards its next waypoint, Stella began to feel a sharp stabbing pain in her head.  
"What's this feeling?!" she muttered to herself. "It hurts!" the Blu Duel stated to move towards the Pillar. Its heading erratic.  
"Ensign, that's enough, lets head back, What's wrong?" Sven demanded, concerned for Stellas wellbeing after seeing the Blu Duel veer off course.  
"Colonel…something…is in…my head!" Stella strained out through clenched teeth.

At the linear train terminal, as he was making his way through the arrivals section Allelujah felt the same thing and dropped his luggage.  
"W-what the..?" he said to himself, all he could hear was a siren like wail, soon he began clutching his head with both hands. "My head!" he quickly doubled over in pain, drawing attention from those standing nearby.  
"Wh-what is this headache!" he said to himself before hanging his head, and letting out a yell of agony before his head snapped back up.  
"**So! Where is this piece of shit?!**" he demanded, his voice having a changed to a more malevolent tone. "**Never come inside my head without permission!**"

From the confines of her cockpit Stella started hearing someone's voice yelling at her from inside her head.  
"What? What are you?" she demanded.

Back at the terminal, Allelujah stood up, his hair now covering his left eye, whilst the right eye shone with a golden hue, its depths promising untold violence.

"**You Bitch, I'LL KILL YOU!!"**


	12. Chapter 12

Sorry to make all those who are reading this wait for so long, my compy needed to be reformatted some time ago and it took a while for me to find the Office 97 disk that was lying around.

On a side note, when I get to it the soma/marie and allelujah bit from episode 7 (you know one I'm talking about), will play out completely differently as I felt that whole episode was in my opinion a complete ass pull.

Anyhoo, I don't own anything Gundam related, if I did that horrible episode 7 of season 2 would 've played out differently.  
--

Chapter 12

"NOOOOO!!!" Stella screamed, the Blu Duel suddenly went into a dive, before somersaulting around to face the pillar, the railgun fixed to the inside of the shoulder-mounted shield swung out, and trained on the low orbit station.

"Stop it, Ensign!" Sven ordered, but Stella completely ignored him, the Blu Duel started firing the rail gun, the hyper-velocity slugs smashing into the rotating Gravity Block.  
"Nooo!! Stop it!!" Stella cried out, hysteric, her fingers clenched tightly around the trigger. "Nooooooooooooooo!!! Nooooooooooooooo!!!"

Sven rocketed toward her suit with the Strike Noir, yelling at her to stop before she caused too much damage. "STOP IT! ENSIGN!!!!"

"Stop it! Stop it!!" Stella continued to yell, wishing for nothing more than the pain in her to cease, unaware of the carnage she was creating.  
"Ensign!" Sven called out as he crash tackled the Blu Duel in the Strike Noir, hoping it would throw her aim off to the point that she wouldn't hit anything, unfortunately she just corrected her aim "That's enough, Ensign!"

Again she just ignored him, she didn't even notice the low ammunition warning blinking in her cockpit.  
"Noooooo!!!" she screamed again.  
"Stop! Stop it, Ensign!!" Sven yelled as loud as he could, to his dismay the worst thing that could possibly happen occurred, several of her shots hit the support struts for the Gravity Block directly. A three-piece section of the Gravity Block slowly broke free of the main Block and began to float away.

Inside the Gravity Block, the sounds of collisions reverberated throughout the structure, as a result, many of the people inside, Shinn and Lunamaria included, stood still trying to figure out what was happening.  
"Whats that?" Lunamaria asked, looking at the ceiling  
"maybe it's space debris hitting the station." Shinn guessed, a second later, there was an almighty crash, throwing everyone to the floor, the lights shutting down.  
"What now?!" Lunamaria cried out before everyone started experiencing weightlessness, the lights then turned back on. "Whats happening?" she asked Shinn, puzzled as to the sudden loss of gravity.

**"Who are you? Bitch, who are you?!" **Allelujah demanded, scowling at everything in front of him.  
"Hey over there!" someone called out, getting his attention, "Isn't that part of the Gravity Block?" Allelujah gazed out the window, and sure enough could make out a large object floating in space, a cruel smile crept along his face.  
**"An accident? Heh,heheh that's a shame, my sincerest condolences."  
**_Hallelujah.  
_Hallelujah stiffened at the mention of his name.  
"**Don't butt in."  
**_Hallelujah!__  
_

_  
Flashback._

_A small spacecraft coasted along in the void.  
"Are we going to die?" someone asked.  
_

_"No…I don't want to die!" yelled someone else, fear evident in their eyes_

_"Kill me…Allelujah." Spoke another_

_Flashback end._

Hallelujah closed his eye_  
__no,I can't…  
_"I CAN'T" Allelujah screamed out, before noticing he was back in control of his body again, quickly looking around, he picked up his luggage and ran off.

"What have you done…" Sven muttered to Stella as he watched the Gravity Block piece sail away, the Strike Noir grappling the Blu Duel to keep it from moving, all he got in response to his question being silence  
"Ensign. Ensign!" he called out in concern when she didn't respond. "Control, this is Sven. Give me the damage report on the Gravity Block."  
"Colonel, according to an emergency transmission just after the incident, the drifting Gravity Sector No.7 contains 232 people awaiting rescue." Control replied.  
"And the rescue party?" Sven inquired.  
"The Rescue team is scheduled to launch in 7 minutes. Along with it an MS team will be scrambled to cover them, however due to the impact of the explosions and the outflow of air, the velocity of Gravity Sector No.7 is rapidly decreasing. In 14 minutes it will be drawn in by Earth's gravity." The operator on the other end replied.  
"What did you say?!" Sven exclaimed, immediately letting go of the Blu Duel "I will assist the rescue team. Send out a team to retrieve the Ensigns suit."  
"But. Sir, an object of that mass…" the operator tried to reason.  
"Human lives are at stake!" Sven interrupted, firing up the main engine, the Strike Noir sped towards Gravity Sector No.7.

--

"It seems the rescue team is on its way." Wang Liu Mei mused as she reviewed all the updates on the situation. "However, there is not enough time. The Gravity Block will be pulled in by the Earth's gravity and…"  
"My lady!" Hong Long called out. "My lady, Allelujah Haptism has launched."

The Strike Noir came to a halt just above the drifting Gravity sector, the suits AMBAC system keeping it steady.  
"7 more minutes until the Breakaway Limit Zone. In order to push the Gravity Sector back to orbital height, the only option is to accelerate it." Sven mused, he fired the hand mounted rocket anchors at the Gravity Sector, when they embedded themselves into its exterior, he wound the lines in at highest winch speed possible, slamming the suit hands first into the side of the massive object. Immediately he set the thrust level at redline and fired up the main thrusters, throttling the suits propulsion to its limit.

"This entire sector is detached from the station." Shinn read out loud as he viewed a nearby console.  
"So, that means we're drifting?" Lunamaria asked, the pair remaining calm while klaxons sounded off throughout the Sector.  
"A rescue party is on its way, We just have to be patient and wait." Shinn replied, dimly noting the hypocrisy in what he said in regards to patience. Another loud crash sounded out, soon he could feel the block moving. "eh, what's happening?" he wondered.  
"This is terrible!" one of the people inside cried out. "I just did the calculations on my terminal. In 5 minutes we're going to be pulled in by Earth's gravity!"  
"You serious?" exclaimed someone else, and mass panic set in.  
"S-Shinn.." Lunamaria whimpered, beginning to show how scared she was.  
"You've got to be kidding." He replied "in just 5 minutes?"

Outside, things weren't going much better for Sven, try as he might, the Gravity Sector just wouldn't move forward, and his suit was gradually getting shunted backwards.  
"Sector no.7 is just too heavy. This suit's propulsion is not enough…" he looked at the clock on the console. "Only 200 seconds left till the Breakaway Limit Zone. At this rate even my suit won't be able to escape the gravitational pull. Do I have no choice but to leave over 200 people to die? Space is just too merciless!" an update flashed on the main screen.

"What? A suit is approaching at high speed? Why didn't it show up on the radar…? Could it be?" on the Horizon the Gundam Kyrios sped towards the stricken Gravity Sector. "A Gundam?"

"Allelujah!" Liu Mei stated on the radio channel. "Allelujah Haptism! Just what are you doing? You have your mission orders." Allelujah closed the channel down.  
"Sorry, but you wouldn't be able to understand…" he replied "how it feels to be drifting in space…" He looked down at the console "20 seconds till the Breakaway Limit Zone!" As the Kyrios got closer, the nose section folded back, the arms then unfolded and moved forward, with a crash it slammed into the area above where the Strike Noir was pushing, and braced its arms.  
"What the..?" Exclaimed Sven in surprise.  
"Again?" Shinn asked as they felt the collision.  
"Go!" Allelujah yelled, the GN verniers on Kyrios' legs fired up, slowly pushing the Gravity Sector back towards the pillar.  
"It's being pushed back?" Sven wondered out loud. "But Celestial being? On a life saving mission, why would they get involved?"  
_The rest is up to Ms. Sumeragi._ Allelujah thought.

–-

"Incoming encoded transmission from Wang Liu Mei." Christina announced.  
"A rescue operation?" Sumeragi wondered "What is that kid thinking?"  
"So what is the plan?" Lichty asked.  
"Isn't it obvious?" Sumeragi replied.

_Even with the Gundam's support. We're barely maintaining altitude. Once our energy reserves run out, we're done for. _Sven noted. Grimly realising that the Strike Noir had only a quarter of its total energy reserve left, deactivating the phase shift had help slow down the consumption of energy but not by much, and he didn't have any more non-essential systems to turn off in order to buy some time.  
"Can you hear me?" a voice said on an open channel "Everyone inside, gather in the center block!" _That voice, is it the Gundam's pilot?_  
"I repeat, if you don't want to die, gather in the center block!" Allelujah yelled, his voice echoing throughout the Gravity sector. "There's no time. Hurry!" Shinn immediately took action  
"Come on everyone, what are we waiting for?" he stated, rallying the crowd, as he led the way to where the emergency space suits were kept.

_A young man's voice…_ Sven mused, in a few minutes everyone in the gravity Sector was inside the center block, clad in the Federation issue space suit the orbital station kept for emergencies.  
"Hey Shinn." Lunamaria piped up "I'm not sure if we're going to live through this, so there's something I want to say, while I still can." All Shinn could do was stare, wondering what it was she wanted to tell him.  
"Can you hear me, Gundam pilot?" Sven asked Allelujah on a secure channel. "If you continue to protect this block, you'll enter the Breakaway Limit Zone. You've done enough, let go!"  
"Heh, I can't do that." Allelujah replied "Celestial Being does not Accept or tolerate failure. Anyway…Gundam Meisters are never alone!" A giant bright pink beam of energy came up from the Earth's surface, disconnecting one of the outer blocks from the center block.  
"What?!" Sven cried out in surprise.  
"I expected as much…" Allelujah said "Lockon Stratos!"

Down on the surface, the Gundam Dynames was hooked up to massive rifle, bracing itself against one of Kyrios' flight containers.  
"Compressing GN particles at maximum density." Chirped Haro. "Charging will be complete in 20, 19, 18, 17, 16…" Lockon smirked and began aiming again whilst Haro counted down.  
"The clouds are blocking my line of sight." He stated. "Slice them away, Setsuna!"  
Exia flew up into the sky, and with one downward swipe of the GN sword, parted the clouds enough to give Lockon a clear view of his target.  
"Charge complete!" Haro announced, in no time Lockon fired again, this time striking the other outlying block.  
"Nice support. Ms. Sumeragi" thanked Allelujah. "CLIMB!!" with less mass to move Kyrios and the Strike Noir we're finally able to move the Gravity Sector sufficiently so it could maintain orbit.  
_Purging the two sections with support fire from the surface. _Sven summarised in his head. _And then accelerating the block into orbit…_ the main screen flashed with another update. _The rescue team is here?_  
It's objective complete, Kyrios pushed itself away from the gravity block and returned to its Waverider mode, turning around it accelerated away, passing by the incoming rescue ships, one of the escort Dagger suits stopped moving

"C-Colonel! The Gundam!" the pilot exclaimed.  
"The rescue effort comes first." Sven ordered, the tone in his voice not allowing any further argument.  
"R-roger." Replied the MS pilot, the Strike Noir then pushed itself away from the Gravity Sector, manoeuvring around the giant block  
_I too feel like I owe him one. _Sven thought.

--

"Mission complete!" Lichty stated, everyone just stayed silent, with Sumeragi turning around and leaving the bridge, as she looked up after the door closed she was surprised to see Tieria right in front of her.  
"You ignored the mission handed down by VEDA and chose to prioritize a rescue operation." He berated "And know the whole damn world knows that Dynames can attack targets in orbit."  
"I guess our plans require a bit of adjustment." she replied, folding her arms in front of her "Drastic times call for drastic measures, right?"  
"You were the one responsible for changing the mission and giving the order to Lockon Stratos" Tieria continued.  
"I didn't do it to save Allelujah Haptism. I did it to protect the Gundam." Sumeragi stated, her tone changing.  
"Incapable individuals are not suited to using the Gundams, and should not be allowed to pilot them." Teiria retorted haughtily before turning around and leaving.  
"And what about you?" Sumeragi wondered.

"We were one step away from death back there." Lunamaria said solemnly as shinn and her sat inside the rescue ships cargo bay with all the others who had to be rescued.  
"Luna.." Shinn muttered  
"It feels so surreal." She continued "like we don't have anymore time here…But, I'm glad."  
"Hey, Luna…" Shinn began "That last thing you wanted to say to me before. What was it?" he asked, a look of shock going across Lunamarias face. "Tell me." She remianed silent for a bit.  
"Not…telling..." she replied weakly.

–-

Authors notes: Phew that one took a while, though I suppose some of you are wondering why I chose to incorporate the AMBAC (Active Mass Balance Auto Control) system into a cosmic era suit, when it's a technology from the universal century, well the reason is, to add an extra layer of believeability to it, and because it's in my opinion just plain cool, I might be adding things like clay bazookas and ballute packs too.

And sorry there was no mention of Dearka and Miriallia in this chapter, but I honestly couldn't think of anything for them.


	13. Chapter 13

I don't own the Gundam meta-series, etc etc  
--

Chapter 13

May 2, South Africa Region Mineral Mining Site

It was Nightfall at the now abandoned open pit mine that the Gundam Dynames had attacked 4 weeks earlier, wreckage from several vehicles were still strewn about the place, in the midst of it all two men could be walking through the site.  
"Jeez, those Celestial whatever guys can sure fuck things up." One of them said, scratching the side of his beard. "This country's entire economy depends on mining these stones. Countless nations and corporations are going to suffer because of this. For the sake of stopping wars they sure don't give a rats ass about the people." Another third person approached the pair.  
"Commander!" he called. "A call for you from PMC Trust." The man took the phone from the new arrival.  
"Ali Al-Saachez here. Hey. What do you mean it's cancelled? I'm already here!" he yelled, irritation showing in his voice. "We mercenaries live off conflicts. If this goes on, Moralia is gonna be ruined!" Saachez went silent for a moment "Very well, I will return to base."  
"Whats wrong?" the man next to him asked as he closed his mobile phone. Saachez chuckled in response.  
"It seems that the PLANTs' big shots finally moved their fat Coordinator asses."

"Must we really deploy troops to Moralia?" Ali Kasim inquired as the PLANTs supreme council debated the issue.  
"We need Moralia's PMC for space exploration and development. We agreed on this during the last summit." Louise Leitner reminded him.  
"Even if it's economy is about to collapse, if we send troops to Moralia. Celestial Being will…" Kasim argued.  
"That's exactly why we have to dispatch our troops." Leitner counter-argued, interrupting him.  
"But if we deploy troops to foreign territories, the public backlash would be…" Kasim began, but Leitner interrupted him again  
"Instead of dwelling on things that happened 4 years ago, we should focus more on the PLANTs' interests"  
"We can just leave the colony developments to the Federation and the Erusian alliance. Without our technological or financial support, they won't be able to achieve anything." Orson White declared.  
"While may be true for a financially well-endowed nation like yours. My nation faces various difficulties." Alan Clarzec pointed out  
"Is your nation that desperate to peddle your weapons? Orson inquired  
"It's impossible to expand into space without any increase in military power." Tokao Schreiber stated. "If we let the Federation or the Erusian Alliance gain control over space. We will lose our final frontier."  
"Exactly." Summarised Chairman Gilbert Durandal. "We cannot afford any further delays in the space race. I suggest that only those nations in favour of the plan are obliged to deploy troops to Moralia."  
"If that's the case…" Tokao began but stopped when he saw that Durandal hadn't finished  
"However." Durandal continued "this deployment has to be announced as a joint PLANTs measure. We will be the white knights coming to Moralia's rescue."

--

"GN Drive, optimal linkage. Charge status of GN particles, currently at 75 percent. Dispersion rate, holding at 40 percent." Feldt read out in monotone "No unknowns within visible range."  
"Say, it's been more than a week…" Christina began  
"What has?" Lasse asked.  
"Since Allelujah's confinement, of course!" Christina replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Isn't it enough? He was just trying to save people."

Inside a small cell on the _Ptolemaios_, Allelujah sat in one of the corners, hugging his knees as he replayed the events of last week in his head over and over, suddenly the door unlocked, and Tieria entered the room with his usual look of detached disgust.  
"Is my solitary confinement over?" Allelujah asked.  
"From your response, I don't think you've learned your lesson yet." Tieria replied. "Allelujah Haptism, you are not fit to be a Gundam Meister."  
"You want to take me off Kyrios." Allelujah replied, more a statement than a question.  
"Yes…is what I want to say." Tieria admitted "But we don't have that luxury currently."  
"We need your abilities again." Sumeragi said as she entered the room. "According to an intelligence report. The president of the Republic of Moralia and the foreign ministers of the PLANTs are conducting a top secret meeting."  
"Moralia…" Allelujah said slowly before getting up. "PMC, right?"  
"This is clearly a challenge directed at us." Tieria stated.  
"It's going to be a hard mission." Sumeragi told them "We will also return to the surface to back you up. Allelujah's confinement is over. Both of you are to prepare for sortie."  
"Understood." Tieria and Allelujah replied.

Sven looked at the scientist with a scowl as they stood over Stella's sleeping form, it had been a week since the incident at the Low orbit station and she had still yet to regain consciousness.  
"We performed a thorough examination of the Ensigns body, but we found nothing wrong." The Scientist informed him. "The nervous impulses in her synapses and her glial cells are both giving normal readings."  
"So why did the Ensign undertake such a course of action?" Sven asked, restraining the urge to choke the man on the spot.  
"After analysing the Blu Duel's flight recorder, we detected an anomaly in her quantum brain waves. It's a phenomenon impossible under normal circumstances. We suspect that she was affected by an external influence." The Scientist smoothly replied.  
"External influence?" Sven replied, confused.  
"If that is indeed the case, then the person who caused this must also have enhanced glial cells, someone who can utilise quantum brain waves." The Scientist concluded.  
"Are you saying they are of the same kind?" Sven inquired.  
"I was merely pointing out the possibility." The Scientist said  
"Any pre-emptive measures?" Sven asked this time.  
"We have embedded a device in her suit that isolates her quantum brain waves. The same thing won't happen again." The scientist replied proudly.  
"Are you really that desperate to send her out into the battlefield?" Sven demanded.  
"If Celestial Being hadn't made its appearance, our research wouldn't have been made public." The Scientist defended. _So it all comes to that._ Thought Sven.

At the PLANTs embassy and ministry of foreign affairs in Sydney, Cagalli Yula Atha was in a meeting with Parnell Jesek, the PLANTs council member of November City and member of the Judicial Committee.  
"Technical assistance for maintenance and development of solar energy technology?" he said, puzzled.  
"We sincerely request for your help." Cagalli replied  
"Our nation is very keen on helping, but…Your nation's situation is highly unstable." Jesek pointed out. "If you can't guarantee the safety of our technicians, the Council won't agree to this. Moreover, the PLANT's elevator is having problems of it's own due to the recent terrorist attacks. I'm not sure if we can afford to spare any technicians…"  
"I see." Cagalli said politely.  
"I will try to expedite our food assistance to Orb." Jesek said in closing  
"I appreciate your efforts." Replied Cagalli. As she left and got into her car, Jesek watched from the window of his office. _The young queen inexperienced in diplomacy struggles to save her country…_he thought. _While I pity her, we simply do not have the luxury of conducting charity. It all depends on Moralia._

"The Republic of Moralia." Feldt stated as she, Christina, and Sumeragi rode the linear train down to the Earth's surface. "A small nation in Southern Europe founded 23 years ago in C.E 53. It has just 180,000 citizens, but over 3 million foreign workers reside there. Out of roughly 4000 civilian operations, over 20 percent belong to PMC. PMC handles the deployment of mercenaries, training of military personnel, weapons transport and development, and the maintenance of a private army. They are a civilian company that undertakes all those kinds of businesses."  
"Feldt, you really are hardworking." Sumeragi said.  
"It's my duty." Feldt replied.  
"Sumeragi." Christina began. "Moralia is a nation that attracts investment from private military contractors by giving them benefits, right? Why haven't we targeted them thus far?"  
"If we exterminate all the wars in the world, they will naturally run out of business." replied Sumeragi. "If only they would just die quietly…"

"It appears that Moralia is picking a fight with Celestial Being." Andrew Waltfeld told Murrue as they sat sipping yet another one of his home made coffee brews.  
"The PLANTs is acting as their backer." Murrue added "In order to fix the elevator quickly, and proceed to expand their space colonies further outward. The PLANTs needs the human resources and technical expertise of private military contractors. And I'm sure Moralia is also thinking of revitalising its slumbering economy." Waltfeld walked towards the window, looking at his Murasame.  
"Even if their own country gets turned into a battlefield as a result, they still require the PLANTs' help." Waltfeld replied. "On top of that, I'm sure they've given some thought to capturing one…" Murrue looked at him, confused, he smiled slightly. "A Gundam…" he clarified.

--

Shinn waited impatiently outside of Yzak's quarters, desperately wanting to know why they aren't being deployed to Moralia. He first tried to get an answer out of everyone else but they simply referred him to Yzak, much to his annoyance, after what felt like an eternity the door opened and the silver haired ZAFT Commander himself walked out.  
"Lieutenant Auska." He addressed Shinn, who quickly straightened himself.  
"Sir." Shinn began. "I wish to know why we haven't been deployed to Moralia, considering the rumours that Celestial Being will ap.."  
"That eager for a fight?" Yzak interrupted, Shinn took a breath before answering.  
"No...Sir, I just wish to know why." Shinn repeated.  
"The Chairman didn't feel it was appropriate to deploy our unit." Yzak informed him. "Besides, we're meant to work behind the scenes, being on display during a joint-exercise would counter-productive to that aim."  
"I see…" Shinn replied. "Thank you for your time Sir." He turned to leave but Yzak stopped him.  
"Before you go Lieutenant, I wanted to inform you that I was impressed by your professionalism and you ability to remain calm under pressure during the incident involving the gravity sector." Yzak told him. "As such I've put you up for recommendation. However, there is something we need to address, and that is your behaviour during combat." Shinn opened his mouth to protest but Yzak silenced him by putting his hand up. "Don't get me wrong, you have good instincts and have shown potential as a pilot, but your headstrong attitude hampers your ability to fight effectively and endangers the lives of your comrades. Your life and the lives of your teammates depend on the ability to work together as a group. Is that clear?" Shinn nodded. "Good, you are excused." As Shinn began to leave, he suddenly stopped and turned around.  
"Sir" he stated. "One more question, why do you care so much about how I pilot a mobile suit, and why is it that you talk as if you know me?" Yzak lowered his head sightly.  
"Because I used to be like you Lieutenant." Yzak said. "And I don't want you making the same mistake I did."

"A joint military exercise between Moralia and ZAFT?" Wang Liu Mei replied after hearing the news from Hong Long.  
"It's a regiment-size deployment." Hong Long informed her, "Moreover, Moralia's private military company. PMC Trust, is also taking part in the exercise. With all their mobile suits combined, the total number is expected to exceed 130 units." Liu Mei got up from the table she was sitting at.  
"This mission will be a huge undertaking." She said. "After this, the world can't ignore Celestial Being any longer."

"Sumeragi!" Christina called out. "The express flight to Moralia is tomorrow. We can have our own free time until then, right?"  
"Do you want to?" Sumeragi asked in return to which she got a nod from Christina. "Well, all right then." She replied, noting she sounded like a person's mother, Christina quickly got up and went to Feldt, who sat on one of the beds with a PDA in her hands.  
"Feldt, let's go shopping." Christina stated, rather than asked.  
"I haven't analysed the mission plan yet…" Feldt said in response,  
"Forget that, let's go." Christina replied, pushing Feldt towards the door. "Every time we conduct a mission, commodity prices go up. We have to buy what we want before it's too late."  
"The data analysis…" Feldt protested weakly, but Christina ignored her.  
"Well, goodbye then Sumeragi, we're off." She said cheerfully.  
"The analysis…" Feldt said again as she was pushed out the door.  
"Oh enough of that." Christina told her as they left, Sumeragi just shook her head.  
"Well" she said to herself. "Let's drink up."

Exia descended towards a small unassuming island in the Indian ocean, the same island that served as Exias' and Dynames' staging points for missions. After it landed in font of a rocky outcrop, the cockpit opened and Setsuna got out of the Gundam, as he lowered himself to the ground he saw two figures approach him, Lockon, and a bespectacled man in his 50's.  
"It's been a while, Setsuna." The old man said in greeting.  
"Ian Vashti." Setsuna said in response.  
"I wanted to deliver these as soon as I could." Ian said, referring to the contents inside a giant container attached to a truck sitting behind him.  
"Prepare to be surprised." Lockon added.  
"Present! Present!" Haro chirped in its usual manner.  
"I already mounted the Dynames's special equipment." Ian said, pointing his thumb at the Gundam in question, which now had a full mantle-like shield covering it. "And this is for you." The container on the truck brought itself to an upright position and opened up, after doing so, a rack slid out of the side, mounted on it were two double edged swords of differing length, the blades similar in shape to an arrow tip.  
"Exia's customised GN blades. "Ian said with pride. "Like the GN sword they release highly compressed particles, and they can cut through 3 metre thick E-carbon with no problem."  
"GN Blade…" Setsuna replied slowly  
"Gundam Seven Swords." Lockon said, "It's finally starting to look like Exia's development codename." Setsuna turned around and walked back to Exia  
"What's with him?" Ian asked, frustrated "I had to bring it to this deserted island in a big hurry. Can't he be a little grateful?"  
"He's grateful enough, Pops." Lockon said with amusement, earning a confused look from Ian. "The Exia is Setsuna's entire existence."  
As Setsuna looked up at Exia's head in silent contemplation he noticed two green particle trails headed towards them.  
"They're here?" he said to no one in particular as Kyrios and Virtue prepared to land.


	14. Chapter 14

The usual disclaimer about how I don't own Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino does, and I have no plans to contest that.  
--

Chapter 14

May 3, Hilton Nairobi hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

The mood inside the Hotel bar was sombre one, mostly due to the mood lighting and slow piano music that could be heard amongst the gentle hubbub of hushed conversation between various patrons. Sitting at the bar itself was Sumeragi Lee Noriega, nursing a glass of red wine with one whilst listening to the news report from one of the holographic terminals what were imbedded into the bars surface.

"World News Today." Spoke the news anchor "Today's report concerns the joint military exercise with the Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty, taking place in the Republic of Moralia, Operation Dawn. The exercise involves over 100 mobile suits from both sides. But why is such a large-scale exercise needed in today's political climate?" Sumeragi then picked up the wineglass and took a tentative sip from it.

"So it bothers you." Came the voice of a newcomer, recognising the voice she put her glass down and looked up to see a young man with glasses, his long brown hair done in a pony tail, a sincere smile present on his face. "Hey."

Sumeragi smiled before turning the terminal off, and the newcomer sat down.  
"Welcome." Said the bartender.  
"Ah, Une Puree." The newcomer said politely.  
"Coming right up." The bartender replied smoothly.

"So." The Brown haired man began, looking at Sumeragi. "What do you think of Moralia's actions?"  
"Let's not talk about that." Sumeragi replied. "It's been a while since we met."  
"Since university, huh?" the man said reminiscently. "How many years has it been?"  
"Don't say it." Sumeragi said cheerfully. "My age will show." The man chuckled.  
"But I already know that." He said in response, the bartender approached him with his order.  
"Thank you for waiting." He said to the man before walking away.  
"A woman becomes older each time she is reminded of her real age." Sumeragi retorted after the bartender left.  
"I take it you have first-hand data?" the man replied jokingly, Sumeragi laughed softly.  
"You sure don't change, Billy." She responded. Billy turned to face her.  
"I was happy you called me." He began.

Back at the hotel room, Christina and Feldt had just returned from Christina's shopping trip, a huge bundle of bags carrying clothes and shoes was sprawled out on one of the beds.  
"That was Fun!" Christina chirped, while Feldt on the other hand had her head sunk low, not sharing Christina's enthusiasm.  
"So tired…" she mumbled, hoping that the ordeal was over, unfortunately for her Christina wasn't done, as the brunette began holding various items of clothes out to see how they looked on Feldt.  
"This is great too! This ones not bad either! Oh, so cute!" she squealed as she switched between outfits at the drop of a hat, oblivious to how Feldt was starting to resemble the living dead.  
"Let me sleep." Feldt muttered weakly.

"Anti-Gundam Autonomous Mobile Group?" Sumeragi said, unable to contain her mirth. "What's with the naming?"  
"It's just been established." Billy defended "The official name hasn't been decided yet."  
"And you've been assigned to that unit?" Sumeragi asked.  
"Not just me." Billy replied. "Don't be shocked, but the technical supervisor is Professor Eifman." Sumeragi's eyes widened slightly.  
"The professor?" she said in response.  
"The professor is already working on the theory behind the particles released by the Gundams." Billy continued.  
"That's interesting…" Sumeragi said before picking up her wineglass, and glancing over at Billy. "So, what kind of particles are they?" She asked, feigning curiosity.  
"No matter how many times I asked, he wouldn't tell me." Billy lamented.  
"I see, what a pity." Sumeragi replied.  
"Well that aside, what have you been doing?" Billy asked, changing the subject.  
"Umm, a lot of things…" Sumeragi said vaguely.  
"What about the incident?" Billy then asked.  
"I've already forgotten." Lied Sumeragi.  
"I see." Billy responded, not pushing the matter any further. He then reached out and held the top of her hand with his. "That's good then. I'm glad I got to meet you again."  
"Yeah…" Sumeragi said solemnly.

At another hotel in Sydney, Cagalli sat on the bed of the penthouse room, engaged in a video conversation with Athrun.  
"As expected, they were only able to provide food assistance." Athrun replied, Cagalli made a face at him.  
"Don't say it like it can't be helped." She replied fiercely.  
"Yeah I hear you, I'm sorry." Athrun said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I'm sure you've seen the news. Moralia is heading straight towards a showdown with Celestial Being."  
"Yes…I did." Cagalli said bitterly. "Speaking of which how are things over there right now?"  
"The same as they've been for the last 2 years, another group of elevator technicians walked off the job today. They said it was due to conditions but we had surveillance on them this time, someone is definitely coercing them into not working, though we're still unsure as to who is doing it, and whether they're being bribed or threatened."  
"Right." Cagalli replied. "Do you at least have any theories as to who's coercing the workers?" Athrun scratched his head before replying.  
"Aside from the usual suspects a.k.a blue cosmos cell or an organised crime group, there is the possibility that one of Orb's noble families is behind it."  
"Oh?" Cagalli said, raising an eyebrow "and what brings you to that conclusion?"  
"The fact that during parliamentary hearings, Yuna Roma Seiran was rather quick to blame the Sahaku's for Elevator's state of disrepair, along with the rising price of commodities." Athrun explained.  
"That is interesting." Cagalli replied. "However that's pretty circumstantial considering Yuna is rather infamous for his prejudices."  
"Good point." Athrun admitted. "Either way I'll keep my eyes and ears open for any developments."  
"Thanks." Cagalli replied before turning the screen off. Stretching her arms she leaned back till she was lying on the bed.  
_Why did I have to be born into politics?_ She thought. _There's too much subterfuge and backstabbing, and being a mediator is much harder than one would think, things are so much simpler when you're in a mobile suit cockpit._ She sat up again thinking deeply on Orb's situation.  
_Although it hasn't gone into open warfare, Orb is starting to resemble the infamous Cold war from centuries ago. Not a good look, no matter what happens, innocent people will be caught in the middle of it, what would you have done in this situation father?_ Unable to get an answer she looked out the window. _I may have to head back soon, if the situation in Orb escalates, Celestial Being will be heading there too._

--

The next day, at one of Moralia's Airbases, there was a flurry of activity as mobile suits from three factions were being directed and lined up in formation. Heavy clunks could be heard emanating from massive hangars as the giant clamps holding the war machines upright were released and the mobile suits walked out, lined up on the tarmac were two massive rows of ZMGF-601R GuAIZ R mobile suits, as far as the eye could see. Although all three factions present were using the same model suit, it was easy to determine which suit was affiliated with whom based on colour. The ZAFT GuAIZ R's retained their usual grey and olive drab colour scheme, the units of the Moralian army were a deep red, and PMC's suits were a dark navy, almost appearing black in some cases.

"A joint exercise, huh?" remarked Ali Al-Saachez as he and one of the PMC officials were about to enter one of the weapons storage bunkers the PMC used, watching the preparations out of the corner of one eye. "I didn't think the PLANTs would agree to this."  
"It's the fruit of our diplomatic efforts." The official informed him. "We can't always draw the short straw. This time, we'll have ZAFT do the dirty work." Saachez chuckled at that.  
"You're right." He replied as they closed the door to the PMC weapons storage bunker.  
"I want to entrust this to you." Said the official, as if on cue all the lights turned on, revealing a sleek, dark blue mobile suit, it's most notable feature being the visor covering the unit's face.  
"The DSSD's new design?" Saachez asked rhetorically, knowing full well that it was PMC that developed the suit for the DSSD.  
"It's a prototype for developmental experiments, but it's been tuned up by our technical department." The official stated.  
"You want me to defeat the Gundams with this?" Saachez asked incredulously.  
"Capture them." The official corrected. Gaining a snort from Saachez.  
"Easier said then done…" Saachez remarked.  
"The reward we have prepared will be enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life." The official informed him. Saachez whistled before walking toward the suit, running his hand along the side of the suit's foot.  
"That does sound very tempting." Replied Saachez, a cruel smile present on his face.

Meanwhile at another location, a red limousine stopped outside a lavish mansion, Hong Long stepped out of the driver's seat and opened one of the back doors, letting the vehicles occupants out.  
"I've been expecting you." Greeted Wang Liu Mei, approaching the arrivals from the front door.  
"Good day." Replied Sumeragi as she got out of the car, Feldt and Christina trailing behind closely.  
"Well then, please follow me." Liu Mei replied as she led the group inside. In one the rooms, two large consoles were set up, with a giant holo-screen in front of them, Christina and Feldt immediately took up position at each console, turning the machines on and then began setting up all the required data for the mission.  
"As expected from Wang Liu Mei." Sumeragi remarked. "Splendid preparations."  
"You flatter me." Liu Mei replied. A map of Moralia with all the bases and mobile suits marked out appeared on the holo-screen.  
"This is the deployment status of Moralian and ZAFT forces, right?" Asked Hong Long.  
"And PMC Trust as well." Sumeragi added. "On top of that, it's real-time." Upon hearing this, Feldt looked at Christina.  
"When did you hack their computers?" she asked.  
"Just before breakfast." Christina replied with a wink.  
"The mission will begin at 0000 hours as planned." Sumeragi Announced. "Target everything that presents a threat to our forces."  
"Roger." Replied Feldt and Christina simultaneously.

"So you met with Kujou." Eifman replied as put a folder down on the table. "Is she doing well?"  
"Yeah." Billy replied cheerfully.  
"And that incident?" Eifman asked.  
"She said she has forgotten about it." Billy told him.  
"I see." Eifman acknowledged as he placed down another folder, Graham listened to the pair from his seat. _Kujou? Is that the strategic planner during that incident?_ He wondered.  
"Live video feed is coming online." Stated one of the soldiers in the room, catching the attention of all present, a screen on the wall turned on, showing the Gundams movement path on a map and live footage.  
"What is that equipment?" Mudie asked, noting the Shroud covering the Gundam Dynames.  
"It's not in our records." Shams replied. Graham just continued watching. _It seems Celestial Being is getting serious._ He thought.

--

"I have visual confirmation of the Gundams" reported a Moralian AWACS DINN as it patrolled its designated area. "Point A4576."  
"Looks like the enemy spotted us." Lockon informed the others. "Oh well. All units proceed according to the mission plan. Keep your encrypted channel open. Ms. Sumeragi will inform us of any change in the plan."  
"Roger" responded the other three Meisters as the Gundams split up. Kyrios was the first to engage, running into a DINN combat air patrol.  
"Enemy air squadron coming in from E332." Allelujah announced "Honestly, Ms. Sumeragi's predictions are always so eerie sometimes." He fired off a burst from Kyrios's Beam sub-machine to make the unit break formation, as he passed, he locked onto each DINN and fired off half a dozen missiles from the flight container.  
"What the?" Exclaimed one of the DINN pilots.  
"I can't shake them!" yelled another has he and the others tried various evasive manoeuvres in an attempt to evade the missiles tailing them, however their attempts were in vain and the DINNs were promptly destroyed.  
"Enemy formation broken." Feldt stated. "No change to Kyrios's mission plan."  
"Roger" Allelujah replied. "Continuing with intervention."  
"Dynames, Virtue, proceed to intervene at point D883." Christina ordered.

Several PMC GuIAZ R's opened fire on Kyrios as it flew overhead, unaware that hidden inside a small canyon on the other side of the airbase they were stationed at, Dynames was aiming at them.  
"Haro, I'll leave shield controls to you." Lockon told the little robot.  
"Leave it to me! Leave it to me!" it replied. Dynames opened fire on the GuAIZ R's, disabling them in quick succession.  
"Heh, I don't even have to aim any more." Lockon said to himself, unaware that another PMC squad had seen where his shots came from and were sneaking up behind him in the canyon.  
"At this rate…" exclaimed the lead pilot before opening fire with his suit's beam rifle at Dynames' rear, Haro however had detected the suit and blocked the shots with the new shield equipment.  
"Rear attack! Rear attack!" it chirped at Lockon.  
"Oooh." Lockon replied, lowering the sniper rifle and pulling out one of the Beam pistols with Dynames's left hand. "I love surprises!" he fired off a snap shot, taking the offending GuAIZ R's head off, before opening fire at the others behind it with the beam pistol as they tried to close in.

With the majority of the enemy suits fixated on Kyrios or Dynames, Tieria seized the moment to his advantage and landed amidst a unit of Moralian suits standing on the Airbase tarmac with a massive thud.  
"Virtue, making a sweep of the GuAIZ R squadrons." He stated, without pause he unleashed a massive blast from Virtues GN bazooka, annihilating all the suits in front of him, a flight of ZAFT DINNs approached him.  
"There you are!" declared the flight leader in a moment of bravado. "You're different from the one that was seen at Carpenteria, but you're a Gundam nonetheless. Well then, you're my target!" the flight leaders DINN swooped in, his wingmen close behind.  
"Enemy suits approaching at high speed from G653." Feldt informed Tieria  
"Roger." Replied Tieria. "Eliminating targets." Seeing as the bazooka was still cooling down, Tieria switched to Virtue's other ranged weapon, the two massive pods mounted on Virtues back rotated and swung up to position above its shoulders, and two giant barrels extended from each one. Tieria promptly locked on to the incoming suits, set the angle of the cannons for maximum area denial and opened fire, two massive beams erupted from the cannons in a huge wide-angle blast, vaporising the DINNs before their pilots could even react.  
"Continuing with mission." Tieria informed Sumeragi.

"Virtue, phase one clear." Christina informed him. "Entering phase two."  
"Kyrios, air superiority achieved. Moving to phase two." Stated Feldt.  
"Change Dynames's mission plan to C5." Sumeragi told Feldt.  
"Roger." Feldt replied.  
"So this is the Gundam Meisters' power." Wang Liu Mei remarked.  
"It's only the beginning." Sumeragi replied. "What is Exia's status?"  
"According to plan, It's making its assault on the enemy battalion at T554" Christina replied.

GN sword/rifle and GN long blade in hand, Exia charged forward, slicing the GuAIZ R in front of it in half with an upward slash of the sword/rifle. Somersaulting in the air to avoid the beam and railgun shots fired by the other PMC suits, as it landed it cut another two suits into bits. Another GuIAZ R lunged at it with its composite shield, beam claw activated, however Exia ducked underneath and hacked its arm off with the GN long blade, whilst disabling the suit behind it with another slash of its sword/rifle. Seeing 4 more units heading towards him from all directions, Exia folded up the sword/rifle and returned the GN long blade to its mounting dock. Before reaching for the beam daggers mounted behind its waist and throwing them at the suits in front of it, disabling them before they could get close. That done it quickly turned and simultaneously drew its beam sabres, cutting the other two GuAIZ R's in half at the waist as they reached it.

"Exia, phase one complete." Stated Setsuna. "Phase two-" he was cut off by a warning sound. Several beam shots struck where the Exia was standing forcing the Gundam to fall back. A dark blue Mobile suit carrying a Zastava Stigmate RFW-99 beam sub-machinegun zoomed though the space Exia had been standing in before turning and continuing its onslaught.  
"A new model?" Setsuna wandered as he tried to evade the shots being fired from the rapidly approaching suit, the pilot was one step ahead leading all his rapidly fired shots, dozens of them striking the weaving Gundam. "What?!" he exclaimed, the suit swooped low and fast. Continuing to pound shot after shot into the Exia_. It's reading my every move… _Setsuna thought. The enemy was then right in front of him, shield bashing the Gundam Square the chest as it did a shoulder charge before ascending to hover above the stricken Gundam. Cruel mocking laughter emanating from the suit's internal loud speakers.

"Ha Ha Ha Ha. It looks like your pilot is not up to the task of handling you. Eh, Gundam?" the pilot announced  
"That voice?" Setsuna said to himself.  
"You're rather bold to mess with my bread and butter!" the enemy pilot remarked.  
"I-it can't be.." he stammered, his blood beginning to run cold as he recognised who the voice belonged to, his mind began flashing back to when he was child in Krugis.  
"But I should thank you for delivering my bonus!" the pilot yelled as his suit descended on Exia, kicking the Gundam in the shoulder before landing a short distance away.  
"No way…" Setsuna said to himself. The UT-D1 Civilian astray in front of him assumed a ready position, the Beam sub-machinegun's beam bayonet ignited as the suit flicked its right arm out.  
"I'll be taking you with me, Gundam." Declared Ali Al-Saachez.


	15. Chapter 15

I don't own the Gundam meta series, etc etc etc

--  
Chapter 15

_Flashback.  
_

_  
"All of you will give up your lives for God." A voice echoed in the deserted streets of a small village in the Krugis republic.  
"In order to participate in our holy war. You all have something you must do." The voice continued as the wind picked up, carrying dust throughout the moonlit town.  
"That is to…"_

_  
BANG!  
_

_  
BANG! BANG!  
_

_  
Gunshots echoed out of the houses, the muzzle flashes briefly lighting up the rooms as the distinctive cracks and snaps echoed throughout the village. One by one children no older than 10 or 12 slowly made their way out of the houses, holding a small pistol limply in their hands, the bodies of their parents lying in a pool of blood. Each child made their way over to a large truck, where a man was standing, waiting for them.  
"Congratulations." He told them. "God has recognised all of you. You are all now His warriors in this holy war."  
_

_Flashback end._

Setsuna couldn't believe his ears when he heard Saachez's voice, trying to tell himself that his senses were deceiving him. From the outside both Exia and Saachez's Civilian Astray remained motionless, ready to move at a moments notice, it appeared as if the pilots were sizing each other up, before making any moves, the air around their respective melee beam weapons was crackling with static. Until Saachez's chuckling broke the silence.

"It doesn't really matter how advanced your suit is." He boasted "I wasn't expecting to capture you without a scratch anyway. If the Beam Sub-machine gun doesn't work. I'll have to carve you into PIECES!" Throwing the Beam Sub-machine gun up before grabbing it by the carrying handle, Saachez's Civilian Astray roared forward, stabbing at Exia with the beam bayonet.  
Exia rolled to one side as the suit sailed past and quickly turned around, Setsuna immediately counter attacked with the beam sabres.  
"GOT YA!" Saachez yelled as he swatted one of the beam sabres out of Exia's hands with one deft upward of his suit's right arm. _These movements! _Setsuna thought as he remembered how Saachez would use a similar move to disarm him during their knife training sessions. With a snarl he swung at the enemy suit with his other beam sabre, only to get it knocked out of Exia's grasp like the other one, quickly he drew out the GN long blade when the Astray backed off.

"Just how many blades is that thing carrying?" Saachez wondered out loud. "Pft no matter." He went on the offensive again, but rather than rolling out of the way like before, Exia charged forward too, slashing wildly with the GN blade, Saachez had to pull off several aerobatic manoeuvres to avoid being struck. He counter attacked with some jabs from the beam bayonet, but Exia promptly dodged and followed with more slashes with its GN blade.  
"Quit moving!" Saachez bellowed before charging forward again, locking blades with Exia. "This is the end!" The Astray continued to push its weight against the locked weapons, slowly forcing the Gundam down. While inside Setsuna's head he could hear a voice as memories from Krugis continued to plague his mind.

_Flashback._

"_Stop…Soran!" A woman begged, sobbing as she tried to hold back tears while cradling the body of her husband.  
"Why…why?!" She asked, as her assailant remained silent, the gun aimed at her head.  
"Why Soran?!" The attacker, her own child, continued to remain silent, after a few moments and continued sobbing from the mother. Setsuna pulled the trigger.  
_

_  
BANG!_

_Flashback end._

Setsuna let out a brief gasp of despair as he remembered. That despair soon gave way to grief, and then rage. "URRREAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!"

The center cavity in the Gundam's torso began to glow very brightly. Blinding white light erupting from it as the GN blade passed though the Beam bayonet and cut into the Beam sub-machine gun.  
"What the?!" Cried Saachez in surprise before letting go of the weapon and jumping back, by that time the blade cut all the way through, and the Beam sub-machine gun dropped to the ground in two pieces.  
"What strength…"He mused. "So this is a Gundam's true capability?" Exia then relaxed its weapon and stood straight. Saachez quickly noticed the green pentagon shape on its forehead begin to flicker.  
"Light signals?" he wondered. "'Get out of the cockpit'?. Is he out of his mind?" Saachez was surprised again when cockpit hatch for the Exia opened up.

"The Exia has opened its cockpit hatch!" Christina cried out in surprise  
"What?!" Sumeragi responded.  
"Setsuna!" Lockon said, confused at his fellow Meister's actions. Saachez watched on in amusement.

"Is he serious?. He really came out." Saachez said to himself, bemused "And judging from his physique…no matter how look at it, he's just a kid, in his teens at most." Saachez stated to chuckle to himself. "Interesting, very interesting, Celestial Whatchamacallit!" he hit a button the side console, and his cockpit too opened up, he made his way out through the cockpit hatch.  
"You came unarmed?" he called out at Setsuna as he began to remove his helmet. "You wanna settle this down there, hand to hand?" he asked referring to the ground, his long red unkempt hair spilling out as he pulled his helmet off "Eh, Mr Gundam pilot?" Setsuna's eyes widened as he saw his opponents face, he couldn't deny what he was seeing anymore, right in front of him was Ali Al-Saachez, the man who he loathed with every fibre of his being. He could hear his voice from years ago congratulating him for his patricide, the 'task required to prove himself to God', pausing slightly Setsuna drew his pistol, Saachez anticipated this and did the same.  
"What? You called me out just for this?" Saachez yelled incredulously. "At least show me your face. Eh, what does it matter, there's no way I'm gonna surrender to you. Bring it!" The memory of his mother begging fresh in his mind Setsuna tightened his grip on the trigger, Saachez was doing the same. Before either could fire and massive pink beam cut through the air between the two, distracting Setsuna while Saachez used the opportunity to hop back inside the cockpit of his suit.

Standing nearby was Dynames, Sniper rifle aimed in their direction.  
"You missed! You missed!" Haro stated.  
"I know I was off! If I tried to him I would've risked hitting Setsuna. Geez." Lockon retorted, before firing off another three warning shots, after the third the Civilian Astray began to back away from the Exia.  
"Finally, he's moving away." This time Lockon aimed to kill but to his dismay the pilot dodged his shots as he retreated, the Astray quickly zooming off in the horizon. As Setsuna got back into his cockpit and booted up the systems he was immediately greeted with a comm channel from Dynames.  
"Setsuna! You-"  
"Leave the lectures for later. Go assist Kyrios and Virtue before falling back, we're aborting the mission." Sumeragi interrupted before Lockon could finish. Sumeragi then turned to Feldt. "Relay the same message to Kyiros and Virtue, we're skipping to phase 6." Feldt nodded and quickly went to work.  
"Goddamn kid." Sumeragi muttered to herself. "Thanks to him the entire mission plan is messed up."  
"He opened the cockpit hatch in the middle of a fight…" Wang Liu Mei said to Hong Long "Why would he do such a thing?"

--

At a PMC owned mobile suit base, Tieria was in position to fire at the hangars but the suits stationed there had him pinned down with sheer numbers and combined fire from their beam rifles and railguns.  
"High-density particles, expanding in all directions." Teiria stated, the panels on the sides of the black pods mounted on Virtue opened up, shortly after there a loud buzzing sound as Virtue was surrounded by a green spherical barrier, deflecting all the incoming shots before they struck Virtue, allowing Tieria to charge the GN bazooka undisturbed. Seconds later the mobile suits were vaporised, a unit of DINNs tried to attack Virtue whilst it was still defenceless, however Kyrios swiftly intercepted them with the remainder of the missiles it had in its container.  
"Teiria, Setsuna seems to have messed things up." Allelujah informed him.  
"Just shut up." Tieria snapped. "I'm not in the mood to talk."

At Moralia's Military Headquarters the situation was frantic as everyone struggled to keep up with the influx of combat reports.  
"We lost contact with the 3rd Air Squadron."  
"No response from the fuel depot!"  
"No response from the PMC 32nd Transport Company!"  
"The communication network has been jammed! We cannot ascertain the situation." The base Commander approached the Officer in charge of the CIC  
"What's the damage report on our mobile suit forces?" The Commander asked.  
"Severe." The Officer replied "Only counting what was reported. 32 were destroyed and 26 suffered heavy damage. The ZAFT forces also lost 15 of their mobile suits."  
"We lost over half of our combat forces in just two hours?" The Commander responded, aghast.  
"Commander! PMC Trust is expressing its desire to withdraw from the battle!" Yelled a junior officer as he ran towards the two.  
"Preposterous! There is nowhere left to run to!" The Commander snarled in reply.

The map which Sven was looking at, read out nothing but disaster, almost everywhere that a base or unit was located, had been replaced with a red X. marking the location or unit that was there as destroyed.  
"This is certainly beyond expectation." Noted First Lieutenant Sting Oakley as he stood next to Sven. "They sure are overwhelming…those Gundams." He stopped talking when he realised that Sven's attention was fixated on the map.  
"Stop sacrificing the lives of your soldiers." Sven muttered "Surrender now."

Chairman Durandal sat behind his desk, looking as the situation report that had just come in.  
"From all our plans, this has turned out to be the worst possible outcome." He muttered to his aide before calling council members Louise Leitner and Alan Clarzec. "How are your preparations?" he asked, getting to the point.  
"The unit in preparation for the reconstruction effort has been mobilised as planned." Leitner replied. "We will be on the ground before any other nations."  
"The private assurance of monetary assistance from the other nations has also been secured." Clarzec added. "With this, we should be able to take Moralia in."  
"Good." Durandal replied. "Let us dedicate a moment of silence to our heroic soldiers." He closed the video conversation with the two council members.  
"Everything seems to be in order." Replied a third person who was present in the room. "No thanks to your assistance from the side lines, Djbril." Durandal responded smoothly.  
"Question is, what to do about the Gundams?" Djbril asked.  
"That issue will be resolved, very shortly." Durandal replied, before opening up another video conversation.  
"Talia. It's me. The word is, go."

"You lost track of all the Gundams?" Exclaimed one of the board members at PMC Trusts Headquarters War Room. "Did they withdraw?"  
"Not sure." Replied a second. "But I think it would be more prudent to assume they have moved on to their next mission."  
"Any messages from Captain Saachez's Squadron." Asked a third.  
"Our wireless communication was badly affected by the particle released by the Gundams. We haven't been able to make contact." Replied the messenger who had delivered the news.  
"Our opponents have just four suits!" snarled the fourth board member. "This cannot be called a war! It's just a massacre!"

Nestled inside a box canyon miles away from where the battle took place, six PMC GuIAZ R's held their position, four stood still in the clearing while one patrolled around, with the last one standing on the lip of the canyon as lookout. From the distance an object could be seen approaching them as it got closer the unit identified it as the Civilian Astray that was assigned to their Squad Captain.  
"Captain! Are you alright?" asked the lookout as the suit landed inside the canyon.  
"Yeah, somehow." Saachez replied, nearly ripping his helmet off "But the bonus got away." He muttered to himself  
"Just as expected from the Captain." one of the other suit pilots replied. "You managed to evenly match that monstrous mobile suit."  
"We were right to follow your orders and hide." The lookout added.  
"Yeah, nothing is worth it if you are dead." Saachez told them all. _But who was that kid?_ He wondered. _Did he know me? And that melee style…Don't tell me that one of those brats survived from that time in the Krugis…Heh, This is too much, I need a drink._

--

Elsewhere the four Gundams made their way through a long canyon, flying along in single file as they made their retreat. Kyrios up front, followed by Dynames, Exia, with Virtue trailing at the rear.  
"Unbelievable, making us go through a route like this…" Allelujah complained.  
"Don't grumble." Chastised Lockon. "The enemy is focusing on points experiencing heavy electromagnetic interference. It's essential the enemy doesn't know where we are until we reach the designated point. This route is the smartest one to take. We're counting on you. Mr. Navigator." Kyrio's right wing clipped the side of the canyon knocking a few rocks loose. Lockon avoiding them narrowly as they flew back towards Dynames. "Hey! Don't do that!"  
"Inept! Inept!" Haro insulted.  
"Don't mind." Allelujah retorted  
"That's my line!" replied Lockon, annoyed. Inside the Exia, Setsuna was still caught up over the events of the battle, namely his encounter with Saachez. _Why is he here?_ He thought to himself. _Is he working for PMC because he has nowhere left to turn to? If that's the case, where is his God?_ A hailing sound brought him out of his musings, he opened the comm channel to see who it was.  
"Setsuna F. Seiei." Tieria stated.  
"Teiria Erde." Setsuna said in response.  
"If you decide to engage in any more unilateral actions. I will shoot you down." Teiria threatened.  
"You intend to destroy a solar furnace?" Setsuna asked.  
"To protect the Gundam's secrets, yes." Tieria replied.  
"We're nearing the designated point." Allelujah cut in. "we'll have visual on the canyon opening in 20 sec-" a loud explosion resounded though the canyon, knocking several large rocks loose.  
"Shit, landslide! Out of the canyon now!" Lockon yelled, all four Gundams shot out of the canyon as fast as they could. "The hell caused that..." he muttered before looking around, seeing nothing but ocean before spotting a large ZAFT battleship waiting outside the canyon opening.  
"That's the same battleship that was sighted in Papua New Guinea." Allelujah informed them.  
"Mobile suits incoming!" Feldt suddenly interrupted over the comm channel.  
"Oh balls." Lockon swore.

"Enemy Mobile Suits sighted!" CIC officer Meryin Hawke announced as the Gundams left the canyon. "4 units confirmed."  
"So they were retreating." Talia Gladys said to herself. "Launch all suits immediately."  
"Yes Ma'am." Meryin replied. "Joule squadron, you are clear for launch."  
"Copy that. Joule squadron heading out." Yzak replied. "Alright everyone, lets do this as quickly as possible, Elmsman. Hawke. Take up firing position on the deck. Hahnenfuss. Cover them." Yzak ordered, in short order all the ZAKUs were launched. "Ok, Za burrel. You target the transforming one, Westenfluss. You attack the melee type, I'll take on the sniper unit. Auska, equip the sword silhouette, your going after the big one."  
"Roger." They all replied. Heading off towards their designated targets, Dearka and Lunamaria began things by firing off loosely aimed shots with their 'Orthos' Beam cannons, splitting the Gundams up, as they separated, the other FAITH pilots moved into action. Rey was the first to make it into battle, unleashing a swarm of missiles from his Blaze wizard pack, Allelujah found himself hard pressed to avoid both them and the beam cannon blasts.  
"It's not fun when someone else does it to you, is it?" Rey remarked at the Gundam.

Lockon saw the two ZAKUs with the beam cannons and tried to get into a firing position, before he could do so thousands of beam shots rained on him and he was forced to the keep the assault shroud closed to avoid taking any damage. Looking for the source of the shots he spotted a blue ZAKU phantom rocketing towards him wielding a massive beam glaive. He had just enough time to avoid the swing.  
"That was too close!" he yelled.  
"Narrow miss! Narrow miss!" Haro replied.  
"I know that! Stop talking and help with the evasive manoeuvres!" Lockon retorted. "Tieria, deal with those beam cannons."  
"Right away." Tieria responded, he readied his GN bazooka to fire, just as he was about to fire out of the corner of his eye he spotted a beam boomerang heading in his direction.  
"Pitiful" he said as he activated the GN barrier, the boomerang glanced off harmlessly, just as he deactivated it another he spotted another one, he tried to bring the barrier back up but it was too close and glanced off the side of Virtues armour, knocking him off target.  
"Damn it." Tieria swore as he collected his bearings he saw a flash of pink and instinctively rolled the Virtue, narrowly avoiding the anti-ship sword that cut through the space Virtue's torso had been in. Virtue's opponent quickly followed with a slash from its other Anti-ship sword. Unable to dodge it, Tieria had to draw one of Virtue's beam sabres to avoid being chopped in half.

"Impossible!" Snarled Tieria. "You persistent worm!" Virtue pushed its opponent away, and swung the bazooka up one handed, firing the charged shot off the moment it was loosely aimed at the enemy suit, the Impulse dropped in altitude, letting the blast sail past it harmlessly, before going on the offensive.  
"I won't let you have your way!" Shinn yelled. The Impulse joined both Anti-ship swords together at the hilt whilst charging in, twirling and swinging the combined weapon in wide deadly arcs. Virtue was hammered from all sides by the assault, though the GN barrier was deflecting the strikes Tieria found himself being forced to give ground. Setsuna, between dodging beam cannon shots, saw the predicament Tieria was in and rushed forward to assist, but an orange ZAKU Phantom blocked his path. A Beam axe in each hand.  
"I'm your opponent!" Heine screamed as he swung one of the axes, locking it against Exia's Sword/rifle. Setsuna drew the GN long blade and tried to slash itself free, only to have it lock against the ZAKU Phantom's other axe. The ZAKU then kicked Exia back, throwing one of its Beam axes before drawing its beam rifle and opening fire, with a snarl Setsuna ducked and weaved Exia around to avoid being hit, occasionally returning fire with its own beam rifle.

Allelujah nearly swore as another beam shot nearly clipped him, things weren't looking any good, try as he might he couldn't shake his opponent, and he couldn't transform Kyrios to Mobile suit mode as its plane form's speed and agility was the only thing keeping him from being hit. It was similar tale of woe for the other Meisters, Virtue and Dynames were locked in melee combat and Exia was being kept from getting close enough to use its blades.  
"This can't keep going like this for much longer." He said to himself. "Something's gotta give soon, before more forces are drawn in." he suddenly had a thought, remembering that Kyrios' wings were quite sharp, and like the rest of the Gundam, were also coated in GN particles. _It's a little on the crazy side but it might work._ He opened a comm channel to Dynames.  
"Lockon." He began. "I have an idea."  
"I'm listening.." Lockon replied.


	16. Chapter 16

Sorry this took so long, had a lot of shite on my plate, plus this one took a while longer to think up.

And of course I don't own Gundam.

--

Chapter 16

_This is getting old_. Lockon thought to himself as dodged for what seemed like the 100th time, mulling Allelujah's plan around in his head, weighing up the pros and cons. By his guess they had been pummelled for a least 5 minutes and he couldn't afford to let it drag on any further, as every minute wasted here was another minute closer to any reinforcements arriving.  
"Alright." He started. "Allelujah, we'll give your idea a shot, Haro, relay the details to Setsuna and Tieria."  
"Roger" replied Allelujah.  
"Affirmative! Affirmative!" responded the little robot. _Let's see if this works._ Lockon thought.

Miriallia almost couldn't believe her luck. On her way to get photos of the aftermath of the battles at the Moralian airbases her motorbike had broken down, in the midst of trying to fix while cursing with every word in her vocabulary a loud explosion caught her attention and she abandoned the bike. Grabbing her camera bag as she ran towards the source of the sound, what she saw surprised her, it was the 4 Gundams of Celestial Being, fighting against several different coloured ZAFT mobile suits, not wasting any time she found a concealed position and began snapping shots of the battle.  
"Amazing." Miriallia said to herself. "Never before have I seen anything like this."

At that moment something caught her eye, the jet-like Gundam had suddenly changed direction, her eyes widened with anticipation as she realised that it was heading straight towards the giant battleship, or more specifically the two ZAKU's standing on its deck, guns blazing. Before passing between them.  
It happened so quickly that the two pilots didn't even have time to react, and they were cleaved in half just below the waist by the suit's wings in a screech of tortured metal. The ZAKU guarding them return fire with its missiles, but the Gundam had ducked behind the port side catapult, as of consequence the missiles struck and destroyed the turret housing for the twin beam cannon instead.

After it ducked behind the hull, the jet-like Gundam transformed into its mobile suit form and drew a beam sabre with its left hand. And then stabbed the port side engine before dragging the beam sabre along the side of the ship, simultaneously firing a volley from its main weapon at the orange ZAKU phantom, clipping the mobile suit enough times to knock it off balance.  
That was all the Blue and white Gundam needed, immediately it gained the upper hand, slashing the ZAKU's arms apart with its blades before turning to attack the Impulse. Miriallia then caught the following scenes on her camera.

-The Green Gundam blasting at a Blue ZAKU phantom with a pair of pistols.

-The Impulse engaged in Melee combat with the Blue Gundam.

-The fat Gundam firing all its cannons at the ZAFT battleship, vaporising the ship's bridge.

After the ship's bridge was destroyed the Gundams used that moment of shock to escape, scattering in all directions, seeing that the fight was over, Miriallia sighed and headed back towards her motorbike, figuring if she lingered for too long she'd get caught. _Dearka, I hope your alright_ she thought. _You better not have gotten yourself killed you giant klutz_.

Shinn was bristling with fury when the Gundams scattered, normally he would've tried to rush after them but his concern for his comrades was overriding that, _So close, I had the upper hand, I was so fucking close, if that blue one hadn't interfered I would've had it wrapped up._  
"Report in!" Yzak bellowed over the radio "Hawke, Elmsman, Gladys, respond!"  
"I'm good…" Dearka wheezed over the radio like he'd been winded.  
"…Same here…wish I could say the same for my ZAKU." Lunamaria replied.  
"We're fine…barely" Captain Gladys responded much to everyone's relief. "Fortunately they didn't know that the _Minerva's_ bridge can be lowered." _Though it was still a little too close for comfort…_Gladys added mentally as she looked up at the huge gaping hole in the ceiling.  
"Sir, request permission to pursue!" Shinn requested now that he knew everyone was ok.  
"Denied." Yzak replied.  
"But.." Shinn began.  
"Commander Joule is right." Rey said, cutting Shinn off. "Our ship is damaged and immobile, in addition we're down by three units, we are in no condition to try and hunt them down right now."  
Shinn growled but relented, heading back towards the _Minerva._  
"Everyone head back to the ship." Yzak ordered "full debrief at 2200 hrs." having said that he returned to the ship, Heine and Shiho followed behind, with Rey taking up the rear.

"All Gundams have left the engagement zone." Feldt informed Sumeragi "evacuation procedure complete." Sumeragi let out a sigh of relief.  
"Feldt don't forget to backup all the combat data." Christina told her.  
"Excellent work Sumeragi Lee Noriega." Wang Liu Mei congratulated. "Even if the mission was cut short."  
"Well, we had an unexpected occurence though." Sumeragi lamented.  
"Even so, it's a fact that the plan was progressing as VEDA had predicted." Liu Mei replied.  
"Personally, I'm happy we strayed from that prediction this time." Sumeragi countered, weariness evident in her voice.  
"Why is that?" Asked Liu Mei, confused.  
"We're withdrawing." Sumeragi stated, is if avoiding the question. "I'll leave the disposal of equipment to you." With that Sumeragi began to leave the room.  
"Certainly." Liu Mei responded, following her, when they were in a separate part of the house Sumeragi turned to face her.  
"Wang Liu Mei, do you know how many people would've lost their lives if this mission had gone as predicted?" Sumeragi asked  
"No." Liu Mei said.  
"500 to 600 people, minimum." Sumeragi replied.  
"Weren't you well aware that such sacrifices would be made when you joined Celestial Being?" Liu Mei calmly retorted.  
"I know that." Sumeragi replied. "Yeah, I know…"

--

"So, it's over." Erica stated as she approached Murrue and Waltfeld.  
"Looks like ZAFT lost their bet." Waltfeld replied off handedly.  
"Really?" Murrue wondered. "Certainly, the loss of over 20 mobile suits is a painful blow. But now I think that the PLANTS will have public support as it walks down the path of further militarisation. And now that Moralia owes them one, their relationship with PMC will probably get even closer."  
"How regrettable." Erica lamented "No matter how brilliant their victories, Celestial Being is destined to be excluded from the world."  
"Do you think that they are on the path to self-destruction?" Asked Waltfeld.  
"They act as if they can't wait for it to happen, at least, that's how it appears to me." Erica replied.

"You Bastard! What were you doing and where?" a PMC board member demanded from Saachez after he had returned to PMC's headquarters.  
"Where?" Saachez asked rhetorically. "I was fighting the Gundams obviously."  
"Then why is your squad the only undamaged one." The board member asked sceptically, Saachez however remained unfazed.  
"Because their commander is superior." He replied. "Besides, a little birdie told me that you were the first ones to order a retreat. And that some more 'good news' is coming your way."  
"What?" the board member responded dumbly. "How the hell do you know this, and what news are you talking about?"  
"You'll understand when you watch the news." Saachez replied. Snickering as he gave one of his trademark grins.

-One month later-

Things had relatively settled back down following what was known as "The Moralia Incident" though the news stations continued to report on it, relatively few people gave it much of a second thought.  
In the Orb capital, Lacus was taking Kira out to go shopping with her, she had been making a lot of progress since they relocated from the island where Malchio resided. Mostly he would stay indoors but the little bits of social interaction he recived when she took on little jaunts like their present one seemed to do some good, unfortunately the flip side was that it was almost impossible to avoid hearing news reports about Celestial Being.

Much like what had happened five seconds ago when a news report covering the Moralia battle's affect on the civilian populace had been broadcast on one of the many giant display screens that littered the city, images of houses crushed by fallen mobile suits paraded for all to see.  
"Lacus." Kira said softly to get her attention.

"Hmm?" she replied.  
"Celestial being pledged to end war, right?" he said slowly.  
"Yes.." Lacus replied, unsure as to where the conversation was going.  
"So why are they going around starting fights?" Kira asked.  
"You're talking about Moralia aren't you." Lacus said, more a statement than a question. Kira nodded in reply. "I don't know, I really don't."  
"But, you're from the PLANTs Lacus, aren't you worried?" he responded.

"I've never been to Moralia, besides, although I'm concerned, there's no point getting worried and worked up about something that beyond your control." Lacus said sagely "oh and don't forget, your supposed to call me Louise in public, remember?"  
"Uh…yeah..so, where are we heading to?" Kira asked, changing the subject as he saw the bus arrive.  
"First, we look at clothes." Lacus began cheerfully. "Then we buy some clothes. Lunch and then after that…who knows?" with a giggle she ran off to the bus.  
"Uh w-wai…" he began, the bus then exploded before Lacus was halfway near it. Sending smoke and shrapnel everywhere, the shock wave throwing the pair to the ground whilst shattering the glass of every building within 100 metres of the bus.  
"wh..what happened?…" Lacus said to herself, dazed, unaware of the large cuts on her forehead and arms. She looked around for Kira to see him in a heap, staring wide eyed at the buses charred remains and the dead and injured littering the ground next to it, the flames reflecting off his eyes. Uncaring of the massive gash on his shoulder.  
"The, the bus…" he muttered, as Lacus made her way over to him.  
"Kira," she called out, Kira snapped out of his trance "We have to get out of here." She told him, Kira nodding in response, Security officers who had been watching the pair made it over, checking them over before directing them to the paramedics who had been assigned to the security detachment.

Setsuna sat motionless within the confines of the cell onboard _Ptolemaios_ that had been occupied by Allelujah a month before, his thoughts drifted between Ali AL Saachez, and Lockons reprimanding when he put him in the cell in the first place.

_Flashback._

_Lockons fist connected with Setsuna's cheek with a sickening smack, sending the Meister into the hangar wall.  
"You understand the reason I hit you right? Lockon told him, Setsuna didn't say anything,"__You gonna tell me why you pulled that stunt in Moralia?" again he was greeted with silence. Sighing, Lockon gently grabbed him by the shoulder and led him to where the ships brig was located.  
"You're a real handful you know that?" Lockon told him before leading him into the cell, shutting the door and walking away._

_Flashback end._

The Cell door suddenly opened, Setsuna looked up to see Lasse standing there. Without a word he entered and led Setsuna out of the cell, heading to the briefing room. As they entered Setsuna noticed that Sumeragi and the other Meisters were standing there waiting for him. Lockon and Sumeragi looked at him with concern, Allelujah looked sorry for him, while Tieria just scowled at him with disgust.  
"Setsuna F. Seiei." Sumeragi began. "Are you going to explain the reasons for your actions?" again Setsuna remained silent  
"The real identities of the Gundam Meisters are be treated as S-level secrets, alongside the solar furnaces." Lockon added. "Why did you show yourself to the enemy?" Setsuna just stared at the floor. "At least tell me the reason." again Setsuna just stood there. "You really are stubborn. Or is the punishment not enough?"

CA CHIK - everyone froze when they heard the sound of a gun being cocked, out of the corners of their eyes they could see Tieria aiming his pistol at Setsuna's head  
"It's fine if you don't want to talk." Tieria said coldly. "You're a dangerous existence."  
"Stop it Tieria." Sumeragi told him, as she grabbed his arm, pushing it away from Setsuna.  
"If we condone his foolish actions, our lives may be endangered." Tieria countered. "The plan has just begun, if we screw up over this…" another sound of a gun cocking echoed through the room  
"I will not be taken off." Setsuna stated, pointing Lasse's handgun at Tieria "I will not be taken off Exia. I am a Gundam Meister" Tieria freed his arm from Sumeragi's grasp and resumed aiming at Setsuna.  
"Lower your guns, both of you!" Sumeragi barked.  
"Um, I know I'm not exactly in the position to say this. Having defied orders myself," Allelujah began. "But we were all chosen by VEDA. There's a reason why Setsuna was selected to become a Gundam Meister." After brief pause Tieria relented and lowered his gun.  
"In that case, I sure would like to know the reason why he's a Meister." Tieria stated. Setsuna lowered his gun.  
"My existence itself is that reason." Replied Setsuna.  
"What?" Tieria said, confused.  
"I'm alive, I'm still alive." Setsuna said cryptically. The main screen suddenly came to life, a window with Christina's concerned face popped up on it.

"Everyone! Terrible news!" the Brunette said.  
"What happened?" Lockon asked.  
"Terrorist attacks took place simultaneously in seven locations in major cities around the world!" Christina informed them.  
"What? Multiple attacks?" a stunned Allelujah replied. "What's the casualty report?"  
"Apparently, time bombs were placed in train stations and commercial buildings. The blast impacts weren't big, but the targets were crowded locations. Over a hundred people are confirmed dead."  
"How horrific…" Allelujah lamented. A second window opened up on the main screen to show Wang Liu Mei's face.

"Gundam Meisters." She began "The terrorists behind the simultaneous bombings have just released a statement via the networks. 'If Celestial Being does not cease its armed interventions and disarm itself, expect to see more indiscriminate attacks such as this. For the preservation of our blue and pure world.'"  
"So, we are their targets as expected." Mused Tieria. "Which organisation is responsible for this statement?"  
"We don't know, although there are hints of them being related to Blue Cosmos due to the tagline 'for the preservation of our blue and pure world' being present at the end of the message. However, they're in such disarray that it would be hard if not impossible for them to coordinate an attack of this level." Liu Mei replied. "Until we receive confirmation reports from our agents, all Meisters are requested to stand by." Liu Mei then disconnected, leaving the _Ptolemaios_ crew to their thoughts.

_Well, regardless of who they are, they've really done us in._ Sumeragi thought. _Blackmailing us with indiscriminate killing…_  
"Hmph, do they really think we will stop our interventions just for that?" a rather Bemused Tieria said. Shocking his comrades.  
"What did you just say Tieria?" growled Lockon. "Don't you care about the civilian casualties?"  
"No, I don't. The possibility of such an occurrence was within the scope of our plans." Tieria replied matter-of-factly.  
"You little bastard…" Lockon growled as he approached him, fists clenched.  
"What's wrong?" Tieria taunted smugly "This is a far cry from your usual carefree and airy self."  
"Shut up!" Lockon yelled as he grabbed Tieria by the collar of his shirt.  
"Do you hate terrorism that much?" Tieria asked  
"And whats' wrong with that?" Lockon snarled, loosing his patience.  
"From the worlds perspective, we make fine terrorists ourselves." Replied Tieria, a cold smile on his face.  
"So am I wrong to hate terrorists?!" Snarled Lockon, but Tieria was still unfazed, merely batting Lockon's arm away from him, giving Setsuna a glare before leaving the room.  
"…Well, I think it might be best if we all get some rest." Sumeragi said after a long silence. "Setsuna, we'll resolve the issue of your actions at a later date, you will be free to walk around the ship however until it is said otherwise you are not to go anywhere near Exia. Is that clear?" Setsuna nodded in reply. "Alright, everyone may leave."

The three Meisters filtered their way out of the briefing room. Each heading off in different directions, Allelujah led Setsuna towards the ship's cafeteria, reasoning that he must be hungry. Lockon however went to Dynames in its container with Haro following behind, he spent 10 minutes gazing at the machine from the container's observation deck before Haro jarred him out of his thoughts.  
"Lockon! Lockon! You're angry! You're angry!" It chirped. Flapping its ears.  
"Sorry Haro. Let me have some time to myself." Lockon replied before walking away, the little robot staring at him as he left. _I'll take them down._ Lockon thought angrily. _All of them._


	17. Chapter 17

Hoo boy, 12 months is long time between drinks, sorry for the delay

usual I don't own the gundam franchise disclaimer

--

Chapter 17

"Until the complete disarmament and cessation of armed intervention by the private military organisation 'Celestial Being' takes place, our retaliatory attacks will continue. What we do is not evil. We are the voice of the people and apostles in the name of justice, rising against those who would oppress the world with military force. For the preservation of our Blue and Pure world."

Not wanting to hear any more Shinn turned the tv off.  
"Can't believe the bastards would do something like that." He muttered to himself, the other FAITH members nodded in agreement.

"I wonder how Commander Joule reacted to this." Rey commented.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Dearka replied. "He barred himself up inside his quarters after Moralia. Hasn't come out since, Shiho makes food rounds to there from time to time but even then he has her leave it outside the door."

"That is strange, considering his preferred method of dealing with stress is to yell at us and kick things." Lunamaria added.  
"Lieutenant!" Heine barked at her, Lunamaria quickly apologised. At that point Shiho entered the room.  
"Has Commander Joule come out of his quarters yet?" She asked, everyone just shook their heads  
"Why do you ask?" Rey asked her, Shiho held up a flash drive.  
"I have the Specification files for the new Mobile suits." She answered. "Was told to give them to him, but if he hasn't come out yet…"

"Take them to him anyway." Rey suggested "Myself and Lt Westenfluss will accompany you if necessary."

"Very well." Shiho replied, the three then set off down the hallway, soon stopping in front of the door to Yzak's quarters, what they saw when they forced their way into the room was not pretty, the lights were off, the glow of the sole monitor screen on the desk giving the entire room a melancholy feel, papers and files were scattered in all directions, often next to growing piles of used disposable coffee cups and food trays. Yzak himself was slumped over his desk sleeping, his normally clean and neat hair beginning to clump and tangle together, adding to his haggard appearance.

"Wow, he's really let himself go." Heine remarked with amusement, Shiho shot him a dirty look  
"That's rather disrespectful Lieutenant." Rey scolded, "and hypocritical given your earlier admonishing of Lt Hawke" just as Heine was about to shoot back with a retort Yzak stirred, groggily straightening himself whilst casting his bleary eyes at the three.  
"Wha..What are you doing in here?" He asked, a very slight slur in his voice. "I said I didn't want to be interrupted."

"We were checking on you sir." Shiho answered for the group. "Everyone is growing concerned for your wellbeing seeing as you haven't been seen in a month."  
"I..It's been a month already?" Yzak questioned.  
"yes" she answered "Also, we have this to give you" she held out the flash drive "it contains the schematics for our new mobile suits."

"I see." Yzak murmured, "Very well, leave it on the table i'll have a look at it soon." he went to get up but almost toppled over completely, Shiho and Heine instinctively grabbing him before he could fall over.  
"Commander, I must insist you stop working." Rey told him. "if you continue like this you'll exhaust yourself, you need rest."  
"I'm fine" Yzak tried to say with authority, but the three redcoats would have nothing of it.  
"Commander, you've been working non stop for over a month," Shiho reasoned "if you tried to operate a mobile suit now, you'll end up crashing the thing, provided you were able to get it to move, which I doubt is possible in your current state." whilst slowly processing their lecture inside his head, yzak suddenly had an idea. _Mobile suits...exhaustion....piloting ability....THATS IT!_  
"Genius" he abruptly stated, confusing all present.  
"Um..sir?" Heine asked tentatively, but Yzak just ignored him.  
"I have to go report to the chairman." Yzak informed them before bursting out of his room and making a dash down the hall.  
"Commander, you might want to have a shower and get cleaned up first!" Rey yelled after him, to which the Coordinator came running back into his quarters, grabbed a spare uniform and then ran out again in the other direction, heading for the shower block.  
"...what just happened?" Heine asked.

--

Copernicus city was definitely a city unlike any other, be it on earth or the PLANTs, Lasse admitted, though that did not necessarily mean it was a good thing, due to its construction the air seldom circulated well if at all, making the entire city have a slightly stale smell to it. Despite that he was happy to have allowed to get off of the ship for a while, even if it was for logistics purposes, bringing himself back to the task at hand he waited at the docks, soon enough several large flatbed trucks arrived, each one carrying a massive orange dockyard container.

"You're late." he said to one of the drivers as the man got out of the cab of the lead truck.  
"It takes a while to smelt this stuff to your requirements, get the required base industrial materials in bulk, and then have it cleared with the necessary paperwork without raising eyebrows." the driver replied defensively.

"Fair point." Lasse concieded before looking at the container. "So. This is all of it?"  
"Yup, 300 metric tonnes of premium grade E-Carbon." the other guy said proudly, Lasse simply nodded as the dock workers got to unloading the containers from the flatbed and putting them inside a large shuttle.  
"you'll get your payment in the next hour. Courtesy of Miss Liu Mei." Lasse replied as the last container was secured inside the shuttle.

"She must really be dead set on having a mansion on the lunar surface thats independent of the cities huh" the driver stated. "oh well thats celebrities for you, always attempting to outdo eachother with how extravagant and eccentric they can be."

"Indeed." Lasse agreed. "I must be off now, Miss liu mei will call again if she needs more supplies for her pet project. cheerio."  
"Aye." the driver replied as Lasse walked off in the direction of the shuttle. "Laguna Harvey and Linear Train Industries thanks both you and miss Liu Mei for your patronage."

--

far away from the moon, the _Ptolemaios_ hid behind a cluster of disused satelites, on the bridge the crew were assembled waiting for something to occur.

"Whats keeping him?" Lichty complained "its been over an hour since he gave news of his departure. What gives."  
"It takes time Lichty." Christina Chastised "Besides you know he has to use the shuttles plasma thrusters until hes a resonable distance away from the moon to switch to the GN verniers."  
"Can it, both of you." Sumeragi ordered, having been on edge since the standby order from Liu Mei came through. A chime from Feldts console got everyone's attention.

"Shuttle IFF signal has been confirmed, ETA to arrival, 15 minutes." Feldt informed them, though her usual monotone voice was lower in pitch than normal.  
"Good to hear." Sumeragi replied, once the shuttle is onboard we'll set off and begin maintenance on the Gundams." the crew gave their acknowledgements and go to work, Sumeragi than turned to Feldt.  
"Feldt, take a break and go to Dr Moreno, you don't look your best right now." the Pink haired girl simply nodded in reply and slowly made her way out of the bridge. When she opened the door to the infirmary she saw that Lockon, Setsuna and Haro were there as well, she tried to get in unnoticed but the little orange robot turned around and spotted her.

"Hi Feldt! Hi Feldt!" it chirped loudly as it flapped its way over to her "Long time no see! Long time no see!"  
"Haro." she whispered as she instincively grabbed the Haro

"hey." Lockon said in his usual laidback fashion. "what brings you here?" Feldt found herself at a loss as to what to say, fortunately Lockon interjected.  
"you're just here for the usual checkup right?" Feldt nodded at that as it was partially true.  
"Same here." Lockon continued "seeing as the Gundams are to be undergoing maintenance I figure myself and the other Meisters may might as well do the same to make sure we are in top shape." he then looked at setsuna. "oi, Setsuna, be polite and introduce yourself." Setuna looked up, Feldt nearly flinched at being under his detahced yet intense gaze.

"Feldt Grace." he said in monotone, when Feldt nodded acknowledging his sentence he diverted his attention elsewhere.  
".eh...close enough." Lockon said in response. "sorry bout that, he's still bitter about being taken off Exia for now." a chime resounded through the room and the door on the far side opened and Dr Moreno stepped out followed by Allelujah.  
"Right that's your checkup and immunisations done." Moreno announced, Allelujah thanked him and walked out. "ok, so which one of you will be next?" he asked politely.

"I believe Feldt is next." Lockon answered, Feldt was about to object but lockon waved it off, "don't worry, me and Setsuna can wait another half hour." Feldt nodded in thanks and proceeded to follow Moreno into the examination room, handing Haro back to lockon as she passed by him.

"Bye Feldt! Bye Feldt!" the Haro beeped.

--

"Wow, the Colonel has certainly outdone himself this time." Sting said to Stella, but she wasn't paying attention, the pair stared out of one of the windows on the side of the Pillar of Heaven orbital station, 1 Agamemnon class Cruiser and 3 Nelson class Battleships could be seen at the station's dock, with the Strike Noir, Blu duel, the newly delivered Verde Buster and 21 Slaughter Daggers waiting to be loaded onto the giant vessels, and out in the distance several Marsellie III class transports could be seen heading towards the station.  
"Looks like they finished spreading the communication probes all over the place." Sting told Stella, again in an attempt to drum up conversation, but was greeted with silence a second time, suddenly she immediately standing to attention, Sting quickly did the same, under the assumption that Sven had entered the room.

"At Ease" Sven told the pair as he approached them, "how are the preparations proceeding?"  
"To schedule" Sting replied automatically "the Marsellie III's have returned from their mission and mobile suits are being prepped and loaded as we speak."  
"That's good." Sven acknowledged "The briefing for the operation will begin shortly, any personnal issues you have to attend to must be dealt with before then, is there anything else?"  
"Yes Colonel," Stella began. "Do you think the force we have assembled will be enough?"  
"the Commander did put in a request for a Girty Lue class battleship, but it was vetoed, too high profile considering we're operating under the pretence of a live fire training exercise, we'll just have to make do with the equipment with been given to the best of our ability." Sven replied. "anymore questions?" no one answered. "Very well, dismissed." the two officers slauted and left, Sven turned and walked to the window that the pair were gazing out of prior to his arrival. _  
_

_  
this is going be nasty. _He thought._ I just know it._


	18. Chapter 18

In no way do I own any part of the gundam franchise

* * *

Chapter 18

June 14, Victoria base, East Africa

Banking gracefully like a swan, one of Orbs 'flying boat' transport planes prepared to make its final approach for landing, come distance behind two Murasames in plane mode loitered in the air, the trio of aircraft being escorted by a wing of 2 erusian F7D spearheads.

"This is MTP-1058, Orb Representative Transport, reply to me Victoria control" the transports captain requested over the radio. "Request permission to land"

"MTP-1058 this is Victoria Control you are cleared for final approach, the Victoria base and Erusian Alliance welcomes you and Representative Atha." the tower controller replied, without further ado the transport lined itself up for its descent onto the runway, inside the plane Murrue got up from her seat and moved to where Cagalli was seated, who herself was reclined and asleep due to the length of the trip.

"Representative, we're here." she said while shaking Cagalli's shoulder to wake the younger woman up.

"w-what?" Cagalli replied she woke up, she pulled the shade cover for the window up, and immediately regretted it as she flinched her eyes not yet adjusted properly  
"I said we've arrived at Victoria Base." Murrue repeated, Cagalli simply nodded in response, seconds later the plane touched down, from one of the hangars Mudie and Shams watched as the plane taxied.

"Who on earth are they?" Mudie asked ,suspicious of whoever was inside the transport.  
"Dunno" Shams replied "that's definitely an Orb transport however, and the escorts were Murasames, judging from that I'd say its carrying someone important."

"Orb huh?" Mudie responded "weren't they those guys who tried to take on the entire EA and lost?"  
"in those words. Yes" Shams answered "hey look, Lieutenant Commander Chevalier is coming out to greet them."

"What are you two doing?" called out Billy as he approached the pair "just because Graham has taken a leave of absence for the week doesn't mean you two can goof off all d...ahh so that explains why we aren't cleared to fly."  
"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Mudie demanded "What's so special about whoever is on that Orb transport that we haven't been cleared to fly?"  
"because, that transport happens to be carrying Representative Cagalli Yula Atha." Billy said matter-Of-Factly, taking a glance outside the hangar door to the transports occupants as they walked towards the erusian entourage sent to greet them.

"Oh dear..." he muttered under his breath as he recognised Murrue, before looking back at Shams and Mudie "alright, back to the Flags, we may not be able to fly them but there's still a bunch of other things we can do to them." the pair reluctantly nodded and moved away from the door, heading back to their respective mobile suits, Billy taking one last look over his shoulder before following them.

* * *

_Flashback_

_Battle of Yggdrasil, March 20, C.E. 70_

_In the void of space, the battered remains of the Yggdrasil space station shuddered as multiple explosions thundered around it, the trails of missiles and linear gun rounds illuminating the sides of its compromised hull as they streaked past, some kilometres away two TS-MA2 Moebius mobile armours approached on an attack vector, chasing a ZMGF-1017 GINN mobile suit  
_

_inside the lead Mobile armour, Erusian pilot Joshua Edwards patiently bided his time, rocking his craft in random directions to keep the mobile suit from getting a fix on him while he waited for the moebius' computer to lock on.  
"Come one come on come on come on...yes." he said to himself as the crosshairs centred themselves on the enemy suit, before he could pull the trigger his wingman flew right into his line of fire guns blazing, showering the GINN with bullets whilst clipping it with a few linear gun shots._

_"God damn it!" Joshua swore as he broke off his attack, losing sight of the GINN, his wingman turning his mobile armour to face him before opening fire again, swearing loudly Joshua forced his Moebius into a dive as his wingman's fire streaked above him striking the GINN from before.  
"Fuck dammit Graham, what the hell was that?" he bellowed into his radio_

_"He got behind you and was about to attack, you should be thanking me." his wingman replied._

"_If you hadn't have flown in front of me when I was about to take the shot HE WOULDNT'VE GOTTEN BEHIND IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Joshua retorted, before Graham could replay a call from a third moebius issued over the radio, informing them that they were chasing the GINN that they were tailing, setting their argument aside they went to the pilots aid._

_By this point the GINN was hiding amongst the space station wreckage, holstering its machine gun and drawing its sword, when the moebius chasing it was halfway past the GINN swung, slicing the craft in two._

"_He got Unit 3!" Graham cried as he and Joshua broke formation.  
"I know!" Joshua replied, "pin him! Then we'll see how the prick likes a missile shower!"_

"_Got it" Graham replied "time to show off the manoeuvre I've been working on" he swooped low as he approached the GINN, the mobile suit prepared its sword for another swing, just as the mobile armour got close it suddenly did a back-flip, rocketing it away from the swinging GINN, Graham unleashing a salvo of Vulcan rounds as he completed the rotation._

_"how do you like that?" Graham taunted the GINN pilot as Joshua joined in with his own salvo. "I call it 'The Graham Special'!"_

_"Concentrate on shooting you crazy show-off bastard!" Joshua berated as they continue to pour fire onto the GINN, as they hoped the pilot tried to break free by boosting directly away from the station  
"right, phase two!" Joshua commanded, on cue the two mobile armours entered a corkscrew,each one firing off one missile at random intervals, try as he might the GINN pilot couldn't evade them, all eight missiles struck the mobile suit full in the chest, the pilot screaming has his suit exploded_

"_Alright fall back, that's enough for today" he ordered "and before you argue we've completely expended our ammo stocks and the batteries are almost dry." he cut in before Graham could protest. Without a word the two mobile armours returned to their ship, when they got out of the cockpits of their mobile armours Joshua could only watch with dismay as the techs and support crews congratulated Graham, shaking his head he left the other pilot to his devices and went to report in.

* * *

_

_Commander Garcia intently listened to Joshua's rather detailed report, taking note of how many times Graham's name and the words reckless action were mentioned after a few minutes he brought his hand up motioning for Joshua to stop._

_"That'll be enough for now Lieutenant Edwards." Garcia replied "pretty much Aker was reckless in battle, correct?" Joshua nodded "and I suppose you want me to take him off of pilot duty."  
"He is a risk to friend and foe alike." Joshua stated  
_

"_Be that as it may, I can't do what you wish, we need pilots, and ones with experience are increasingly hard to find." Garcia told him.  
"But Commander, he could end up getting someone killed!" Joshua protested._

_"Its war Lieutenant, people getting killed is a fact of life, if his conduct on the battlefield results in friendlies getting killed then action will have to be taken but until then I'm not taking him off of the pilot roster because you two don't see eye to eye, suck it up and get along." Garcia ordered, the tone of voice hinting that the matter was not to be discussed further. Reluctantly Joshua saluted and left the room, as he made his way to his quarters a bright flash from one of the windows caught his eye, looking out he could see what was left of the Yggdrasil station explode and crumble to pieces under the weight of a sustained bombardment, when he made it to his quarters he saw Graham waiting for him._

_"Joshua you dog, you're missing the party!" Graham greeted cheerfully as he tried to pull Joshua into a headlock but the other pilot just shrugged him off.  
"Party for what? The destruction of the station we were fighting over, The death of our comrades or the bullshit stunts you pulled?" Joshua replied icily."...sorry, look I know you want to prove yourself but there are better ways to do it, Commanders tend to favour those with level heads when making promotions, not just your kill count."  
_

"_..Right" Graham replied. "sorry, I'll try to control myself in the future." the pair remained silent for a while before Graham opened his mouth again "We're still friends right?" Joshua just chuckled  
"Yes Graham, we're still friends." several warning klaxon's went off startling the pilots._

"_the hell?" Graham muttered out loud  
"Looks like this battle is over." Joshua guessed. "that klaxon is to alert ship crews that the fleet is disengaging and returning to Ptolemaeus Lunar Base."  
"is see" Graham replied_

_Flashback end

* * *

_

Murrue let out a sigh of relief as she stepped inside the hotel elevator, it had been a long day and she was finally able to get a small amount of time off, lost in thought as to what to do with what time she had she almost didn't notice to chime signalling that the door had opened, when she stepped out into the hotel lobby Murrue instantly recognised the blond man in an erusian uniform waiting near the receptionist desk

"I didn't realise we were getting a tour guide as well." Murrue said by way of introduction  
"These are tense times, especially with the likes of Celestial Being about, it wouldn't be good for a former Atlantic Federation officer, especially an infamous one like yourself, to walk about on their own." the man replied.  
"Fair call, I suppose there's a reason my 'guide' is you specifically." Murrue responded as they exited the lobby  
"No comment" the officer said, hailing a taxi "to the war memorial" he told the driver.  
"What makes you think I was going to go there?" Murrue asked.  
"why else would you risk showing your face in erusian territory." the man said matter-of-factly. "look, I'm sorry for what happened at-"  
"Don't, Joshua. just don't." Murrue interrupted. "what happened at Jachin Due happened." _Twice._ She added mentally, "Apologising isn't going to change the outcome." Joshua frowned but said nothing so they spent the rest of the trip in silence, when they arrived, they got out of the taxi and continued in on foot, making their way past all the headstones, suddenly Joshua stopped walking.

"What?" Murrue asked.  
"A foul wind is blowing." Joshua replied tersely. "I'll wait by the entrance." with that he walked off back the direction they came, puzzled Murrue looked up ahead to see another blond Erusian officer gazing at some of the headstones, with a deep breath Murrue walked up next to the man and looked at the headstones he was staring at, the pair keeping an awkward silence as they paid their respects. On the headstones in question the following words were inscribed

Emilio Ribisi C.E. 47 – C.E. 70

Machida Vernes C.E. 44 – C.E. 70

* * *

half a world away, on the ruins of Junius Seven, work was under way, several dozen GINN High Manoeuvre type II's carried massive flare motors between themselves, carefully placing the devices into specific locations, as this was going on a dozen dark blue GuAIZ R's oversaw the operation from their position next to decaying multi-story building, with two men in pilot suits conversing on the roof

"heh heh, look at them go Brochuss, so hard at work." Ali al Saachez said to his lead subordinate. "like little worker ants, or something to that effect."  
"Ebzan's and Avaranche's units are in position." Brochuss informed him.  
"good, good." Saachez replied. "you know, this place almost makes me feel kinda...nostalgic"

"what do you mean?" Brochuss asked, Saachez simply shrugged  
"oh nothing..nothing at all" he lied "make sure that Ebzan and Avaranche remain hidden and don't act until after those Celestialwhatever guys start attacking when they inevitably show up."  
"Sir, you sure that's wise? Those Zala loyalists did pay us handsomely to do what is essentially guard duty" Brochuss questioned. Saachez shot him one of his trademark smiles.  
"if they were smart they would've paid us half now and half later, rather all at once." Saachez chuckled a bit before stretching his arms. "besides, a true fisherman does not care for the feelings of the bait."


End file.
